


Thirst

by imunbreakabledude



Series: Thirst-verse [1]
Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/F, Vampires, blood stuff (bc of the vampires), sexy violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imunbreakabledude/pseuds/imunbreakabledude
Summary: Eve Polastri doesn't only believe in vampires; she believes in one particular vampire that has been committing a series of distinctly un-vampirelike kills all over Europe. And now, it seems that vampire is here in London.(A good old-fashioned Vampire AU for all your tropey-goofy-sexy-dark-romantic-supernatural Villaneve needs.)
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Series: Thirst-verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620313
Comments: 208
Kudos: 696





	1. Theory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After writing some [speculative season 3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050153) and [angsty prequel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750973) fics, I wanted to indulge myself in a nice AU. I had the idea for a Vampire!Villanelle fic for a while, because, come on, she bit someone in the neck in canon! I dismissed it at first but it wouldn't leave me alone, so here we are.
> 
> Expect lots of the usual vampire hijinks. But with classic villaneve investigating-each-other-as-flirting.

  
“Another one for your bulletin board, Eve,” Bill says as he strides into the office. “Poor bloke murdered while he was cooking dinner for him and his cat.”

Eve perks up immediately, happy for a distraction from the authorization form on her computer screen. She swivels her chair around to face Bill’s desk. “Cause of death?”

“Slit throat.” Bill says, plopping down in his own chair as he swings it to face Eve. “But the part you’ll really like is, when they found him, he was sucked dry. Not a drop of blood.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Wish I was; it’s nasty business.” Bill pulls out some crime scene photos out of the folder and passes them to Eve. “Awfully good evidence for your theory, eh?”

Eve flicks through the photos of a man lying dead on his kitchen floor, as if he’d been struck down right in the middle of making an Italian feast. A huge gash mars his throat, but it’s eerily clean: not a speck of blood remains on the wound itself or anywhere around him. The only red in the whole photo is a squashed tomato he must’ve dropped as he was slain.

“Interesting,” Eve murmurs.

“So?” Bill prods, clearly hoping for a bigger reaction out of Eve. “Are you going to take this to the higher ups and explain how this proves vampires walk among us?”

Eve rolls her eyes. “I don’t think it’ll convince them. It doesn’t even convince me.”

“I thought you’d eat this up. You’ve tried to pin murders on creatures of the night with much less evidence than this before. Drained of all blood, and _now_ you don’t want to jump to conclusions?”

“The blood-draining is incredibly promising. It’s the cooking I don’t like.”

“The Italian food?”

Eve points to a line on the crime scene report. “Description says he was in the middle of making lasagna and _garlic_ bread.”

“Jesus Christ, Eve, you’re loonier than I thought.”

“That’s not the biggest problem, either. He was killed inside his own house, and everyone knows vampires can’t enter a private home without an invitation.”

“Maybe the sap invited him in for some lasagna,” Bill suggests. “He seemed lonely enough.”

“Who _wants_ to believe in vampires now?” Eve teases.

“You’re right, Eve. I should’ve seen that this is clearly not a supernatural murder. I’m only a novice at this; so sorry to waste your time.” 

Bill reaches to take the file back, but Eve holds it close to her chest, admitting, “It’s still worth a closer look.”

“I knew it.”

They head upstairs to the conference room for a further briefing on the case with a representative from MI6. Carolyn Martens is a very no-nonsense woman who treats Bill and Eve politely, but somehow manages to make clear solely from her posture that she has an endless list of more important things to do than converse with them.

“A real monster must’ve done this one,” she murmurs as she glances over the photos.

“Monster, indeed,” Bill mutters, suppressing a giggle. “Eve, tell her your theory.”

“Theory?” Carolyn sounds interested.

“He’s only joking. Nothing.”

“No, I want to hear it.”

Eve knows that she’s not in good company when it comes to believing in vampires. She’s been called crazy enough times to learn to be very careful about whom she shares her interest with. Tracking vampires has been a fixation of hers since childhood, though she hasn’t gotten her hands on any incontrovertible evidence. Yet.

Worst case scenario, she figures, she has an eccentric hobby. Her husband Niko doesn’t seem to mind; he teased her a bit when he first discovered her shrine of vampiric literature, of course, but now allows her to "research" in peace without question.

And best case scenario? Everyone else is wrong, and Eve is right. She’s been right all along.

But she needs proof. Like finding one single, real vampire. Then, and only then, she can gloat. For now, she has to act like a rational adult.

“My theory,” Eve says, “is that now that this killer, whoever it was, has access into this apartment building, maybe they would come back and strike again. We should probably place protection on the whole building just to be safe.”

Carolyn waits a moment, as if she expects Eve to go on, then nods. “Right. I’ll let you and Mr. Pargrave take care of that.” Then she gathers her things and leaves, off to do something infinitely more interesting than a routine check-in with two security officers.

“Should’ve told her. I think she would’ve been a fan,” Bill says once she’s gone.

“Oh, fuck off, Bill.”

  
Eve brings the murder file home with her and immediately settles down in her study, or her “library” as Niko jokingly calls it – referring, of course, to the library in which Buffy and her friends would research ways to kill vampires and other demons. Much like the library, it’s crammed full of books on vampires, demons, and the occult – those that proudly label themselves as fiction, as well as those that purport themselves to be factual handbooks. Unfortunately, unlike the Sunnydale High library, her cramped office is seldom visited by vampires. Eve would kill for a tiny fraction of the action Buffy and her friends got. Buffy slayed thousands of vampires before she was a legal adult, and Eve couldn’t even stumble across one wimpy vamp in forty years, so she's forced to live vicariously through fictional slayers on TV.

She curls up in her worn-out swivel chair with a neglected cup of tea going cold as she pores over the file, looking for new clues. What human would go to the trouble to completely drain a body of blood, and why? And _how?_ Some sort of special blood vacuum? A giant syringe? What would one do with all that blood, anyway, once it was removed?

No, she needn’t try to justify how a human could’ve done it – that kind of rationality could wait for the work day, when she was in front of others, to keep up the appearance of being a sane adult. In the privacy of her study, she’s free to ask what she really wants to ask, which is, _how could a vampire have done this?_

The man was murdered in his apartment, and the majority of vampire myths agree that vampires cannot enter a private residence without an invitation. Perhaps a vampire would be able to enter the foyer or hallway of the apartment building of its own accord, but surely the apartment itself would be sufficient to bar the creature’s uninvited entry.

In the midst of his teasing, Bill had actually made a good point that the victim might’ve invited a vampire in. He didn’t have many friends or family from his background that Eve had read, and most myths suggested that vampires could be very skilled at charming their way into getting an invitation. 

The garlic, however, bothers her more, not because it presents such a practical barrier to a vampire – myths range in their assertions about how strongly garlic would repel vampires, if it would at all – but because it seems… superfluous.

A body drained of blood paired with two notoriously specific vampiric hindrances? It seems too planned, like someone designed this crime scene specifically to taunt Eve.

_That’s ridiculous,_ Eve chides herself. _You’re a mid-ranking security officer. You’re not even important enough to get access to the paper shreddings from important cases. No one is murdering people **at** you. _

“Are you coming up to bed soon?” 

Eve looks up to see Niko at the door. “Jeez, you scared me. How long were you standing there?”

“How long have you been glued to that photo?” Niko counters.

“I’ll be up in a few more minutes,” Eve promises, but she can tell by the way Niko shakes his head that he doesn’t believe her. 

“You should’ve been a slayer.”

_“Thank_ you!”

“I’m serious. You really belong in a world where vampires are real. Van Helsing’s got nothing on you.”

“Thank you. A few minutes. I promise.”

“If you’re not up in five, I’m taking your pillow.”

It’s nice that Niko doesn’t mind that his wife believes in vampires, but truthfully, that’s not all Eve believes in.

Eve believes in one particular vampire that has been committing a series of distinctly un-vampirelike kills all over Europe. And now, it seems that vampire is here in London.

The next morning, Bill greets her cheerily, “Got a fresh one for you.”

“Is it bulletin-board material?” Eve asks, trying to add a layer of defensive irony to her tone – she is never sure if Bill is so supportive of her “research” because he wants to help her, or to mock her.

“Can’t keep up with your theories, but it may be.” Bill reads over the details. “Cause of death: strangulation, but that’s not confirmed – it was only found a couple of hours ago. Hasn’t been to the lab yet.”

“But the blood?”

“We’ll have to wait for the autopsy for confirmation, but some of the cleanup crew did remark that the body felt _light.”_

“Jesus.” Eve has a fairly strong stomach when it comes to guts and gore, but that phrasing still makes something inside her flinch.

“But it was done during the daylight,” Bill points out. “Not in a private home, this time, though.”

“Where was it?”

“The modern art museum down in South Bank.”

“The one that’s a converted church?”

“Was it?” Bill asks. “I suppose that would keep away the demons, wouldn’t it? Consecrated ground and all that.”

“Depends on what versions of the myth you trust,” Eve explains.

“Well, forensics has blocked off the gallery where the body was found.”

“But the rest of the museum is still open?” Eve asks, doing her best to make the question sound innocent.

“Oh, Eve,” Bill groans. “Please don’t go down there.”

“I never said–”

“You’re on what, your third warning? It’s not your job to investigate the crime scene, and I don’t want to end up doing what is actually your job when you get sacked.”

“Don’t worry. Forensics won’t catch me.” Eve grabs her jacket off the hook and heads for the door.

“Don’t be an idiot!” Bill calls after her. “And I’m going to eat your lunch!”

Eve clocks out for her lunch break – if 10:15 can even be considered a “lunch break” – and makes her way to the museum. She can see the police presence around one entrance, which must be closest to the gallery where the body was found.

Yes, the building was a former church, but not all vampire myths asserted that the demons had any real aversion to Christian symbology. And yes, it was broad daylight, but hypothetically, if a vampire had waited in the building all night, and hypothetically dropped the body in the gallery, at a time and place that would seem impossible for a vampire, then that vampire would be trapped in the building until sundown. All they would have to do is blend in and evade suspicion, because what human would be crazy enough to murder someone and hang around in the building? They could wait out the day among the crowd and slip out in the evening, with the authorities none the wiser.

Hypothetically, of course.

Eve gives the police tape line a wide berth and swings around to the other entrance to the museum, which boasts a spacious lobby with a coffee bar and a gift shop. Plenty of people come through and grab a coffee and a pastry or just sit, so Eve buys herself a cappuccino and snags a table. She can’t get fired for going to a café and people-watching.

There’s plenty of people to observe in the lobby, and Eve doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking for. She highly doubts this vampire will be sitting there, fangs out, wearing a _“Honk if you’re undead!”_ t-shirt, so she sips her coffee and makes note of everyone around her. No one is above suspicion. 

She spots a beautiful blonde woman sniffing at her tea. A shifty looking man with glasses typing on his laptop but continually looking over his shoulder. An old man tapping his cane on the floor, engaged in lively conversation with a young server. A girl with a scarf and hat, scribbling furiously in a sketchbook. A mother with a ten-year-old boy playing some game on an iPad with the sound effects turned up to max.

Could any of these people be a demon in disguise? Eve feels sillier the longer she sits. What had she expected, anyway, for the creature to suddenly announce its presence and sink teeth into another person in front of her? Maybe the vampire had found another way to get the body here without getting trapped; maybe it had someone else drop the body.

_Or maybe, it wasn’t a vampire at all and you’re grasping at straws,_ says a voice inside her head. It’s Bill’s voice. Eve mentally tells it to _fuck off_ again and decides she will stay for ten more minutes before admitting defeat.

Her gaze returns to the blonde woman, who is lavishly dressed and looks like she could’ve stepped off the page of a fashion magazine. Every time Eve’s eyes land on her, she’s smelling her drink. Eve is unable to ever catch her taking a sip. She sits at a small table by the window, alone and unbothered, doing nothing else out of the ordinary. Maybe she’s just eccentric.

Just as Eve is about to give up on watching her, and maybe on this whole endeavor, the sun comes out from behind a cloud and light comes streaming in through the window. Immediately, the woman leans back, only slightly, but distinctly out of the beam of sunlight.

Eve quickly averts her gaze, afraid to get caught staring as her mind races. Could that be her? She looks so regular. The sunlight moment was suspicious, all right, but how could Eve be sure? 

She gets an idea, and pulls out her phone, then hesitates. If this is a regular woman, and Eve gets caught trying to take a picture of her across a busy cafe, she will look like a real creep. On the other hand, she could play it off as style envy. Someone as attractive as this woman has probably been on the receiving end of all manner of creepy behavior before.

Eve’s heart speeds up as she unlocks her phone. Suddenly, the woman’s head snaps to Eve, staring directly back at her, almost as if she could hear Eve’s heart beating. Eve has come too far now to quit out of embarrassment, so she opens the camera app. The woman raises an eyebrow and smirks invitingly, as if she knows what Eve is about to do. _So much the better if she wants to pose for me,_ Eve thinks.

Eve looks down at her phone screen, then back up at the woman, to make sure she is really seeing what she thinks she is seeing. The blonde woman is still sitting by the window, grinning wide as the cat that ate the canary, but when Eve looks at the same scene on her phone’s camera, there’s only an empty chair.

Eve has found her first vampire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope at least one other person enjoys this as much as I'm already enjoying writing it :)
> 
> Thoughts? Feelings? Let me know!
> 
> or catch me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or my brand new [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)!


	2. Scent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve escapes her first vampire encounter unscathed, but now that she's exposed herself, there's no going back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much to everyone who read the first chapter! I was really overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedback and encouragement. I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes a little supernatural twist to this story! :)
> 
> Also big shout out to my number one pal [Kara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kpowell123) for beta reading this chapter! If you like The 100, check out her fics, they're amazing!

Eve taps her phone’s screen furiously to take several photos, though she’s not sure why – pictures of an empty chair won’t do her much good.

If Eve’s phone had been able to capture the vampire’s image, she would’ve recorded a nice flipbook series of the woman rising from her chair and beginning to stride toward Eve at a casual yet determined pace. Eve is so baffled by the empty photos that it takes her a half second to notice the approach, and for her survival instinct to kick in.

 _Oh fuck. Oh shit. Vampire coming at me. Gotta run._ Eve struggles to stand up, banging her knees into the table and almost knocking it over, before awkwardly shoving her chair back. The vampire ambles towards her, not in a hurry, but with a look of amused interest on her exceptionally smooth and radiant face.

Through her panic, some part of Eve’s brain is present enough to admire the vampire’s appearance. Beautiful, and not pale, like legends would have her believe vampires should be – her cheeks could even be called rosy. Eve wonders if there’s some kind of vampire beauty regimen to get that superhuman glow, or if flawless skin comes with the territory of being immortal.

 _Run now, idiot; speculate about skincare later._ Eve has no idea if the vampire would dare expose herself by attacking Eve in this public space, but she doesn’t want to find out. As she tries to detangle her legs from her chair, her phone slips out of her hand and clatters to the floor. Her eyes flit down and she bends a few degrees to reach for it, but then Eve notices the woman rapidly closing the distance between them and abandons her phone to make a mad dash for the door instead.

Eve sprints as quickly as she can in her work flats as she darts between café tables, arousing concerned glances from the other patrons. She tries not to think about how close the vampire is and doesn’t look back until she bursts through the exit door (almost bowling over a young couple on their way in) and escapes into the sunlight.

She continues out onto the sidewalk at a half-jog as she turns to check the vampire’s progress, and promptly slams into someone. That’s what she gets for not looking where she’s going. 

“Sorry, sorry!” she gushes as she bends down to help up… Carolyn Martens. The high-ranking officer from Something Really Important at MI6, which Eve probably should’ve paid more attention to when Carolyn had introduced herself yesterday. Regardless of what her title was, she outranked Eve by a mile, and not only had Eve just mowed her down, she also was now caught red-handed, suspiciously close to the scene of the crime she was really, _really_ not supposed to be investigating.

“Eve Polastri?” Carolyn remarks, with only a trace of surprise.

“I’m sorry,” Eve manages, gasping for breath. “So sorry, ma’am–Carolyn–sorry.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Just… getting a coffee?” Eve says, finally catching her breath.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” If only Carolyn knew how right she was.

“I really need to get home,” Eve says, and feeling imbued with confidence by Carolyn’s use of the word ghost, or maybe just by the fact that she was as good as fired anyway, she adds, “And maybe you should get away, too. Before the sun goes down.”

Carolyn’s expression hardens with concern, and she asks, “Is she in there?”

Eve wants to ask, “Who?” and also about a million other questions, but she understands from Carolyn’s demeanor that time is of the essence. “Yes. She is.”

Carolyn whips out her phone, presses a contact on speed dial, and says, “She’s inside. Make a sweep,” before abruptly hanging up.

Eve can only stare, mouth agape, as Carolyn brightens up and takes her arm. “Let’s go get you another coffee. And perhaps lunch.”

  
Carolyn takes Eve a few streets away to a small, but lavish Mediterranean restaurant where Carolyn is apparently a regular, judging by the way the host greets her.

“Order whatever you like. I imagine you must be hungry. Adrenaline usually makes me hungry,” Carolyn remarks, looking over the menu for only a few seconds before shutting it. Clearly she had a usual order.

“I could eat this entire menu,” Eve mutters, feeling overwhelmed by her options.

Carolyn smiles sympathetically and takes the lead when the server comes, ordering a large assortment of food for the both of them. Once he leaves, Eve plays with her cutlery anxiously, trying to decide which of the thousand questions that were crowding her mind she ought to ask first.

However, Carolyn spares Eve that decision by beginning with a question of her own. “Did she look like this?”

Carolyn pulls a tattered photo from her pocket and slides it across the table. Eve picks it up and examines it: a school portait of a young brunette girl, smiling innocently. Although some details have changed – she dyed her hair, and her eyes were cold and dead – the face is unmistakably the same one Eve had fled from in the café.

“Yes, that’s her. How did you get a photo of her?” Eve asks innocently. Rather than a photo of an empty chair. 

“I’m afraid that’s privileged information. I can’t tell you anymore,” Carolyn says curtly, taking the photo back and stowing it away.

“How are you involved in all this?” Eve ask, then realizes, “Is this what MI6 really does?”

Carolyn purses her lips. “Not quite. My position at MI6 is a convenient but ultimately unrelated side job for me.” Eve can’t help but marvel at the sheer power of calling MI6 a side job, but Carolyn continues. “I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself, haven’t I? I am the Chief of Operations for the Silver League, the most elite and deadly team of hunters in Western Europe. I know that description sounds egotistical, but frankly it’s the most concise and factual way to explain it to you.”

“And by ‘hunters’ you mean…”

“We hunt vampires.”

“So vampires are real?” Eve asks.

“You just met one,” Carolyn says, beginning to sound a bit impatient.

“I knew it!” Of course, Eve had always hoped so, and had even confirmed it with her own eyes only minutes ago, but somehow hearing someone else say it is what it takes for Eve to finally believe it’s true. She isn’t crazy. She is _right._

“Most vampires are foolish and easily dispatched, but once in a while we’ll encounter one who presents a genuine challenge for our team. The fact is, we’ve been trying to track down this particular demon for months,” Carolyn admits. 

“She’s been all over Europe, hasn’t she?” Eve asks. “Killing in weird ways.” Finally, a chance to share all the observations she’d made while researching in her library!

“Tell me more,” Carolyn says, guardedly.

“She killed a man in Barcelona last month, and two in Vienna before that.” Eve says excitedly. “At least, I think she did.”

“We think so, too.” Carolyn says, a hint of respect creeping into her voice; clearly Eve has passed the first test. “We have the best and brightest working on the case, and you managed to track her down completely on your own.” Carolyn frowns. “How exactly did you manage to do that?”

“Intuition,” Eve says. Plus a healthy dose of luck, but Carolyn doesn’t have to know that.

Carolyn’s phone buzzes and she picks it up before the second ring. “Status?” she asks, then offers brief responses - several “yes”s, a few “proceed as usual”s… then hangs up. “Apologies,” she says to Eve. “That was the retrieval team. They swept the building and couldn’t find her anywhere.”

“How?” Eve wonders aloud. “She was in there. I saw her.”

“That’s par for the course, I’m afraid; this isn’t the first time she’s slipped through our fingers like this. She’s quite an elusive specimen. Which is why I believe your intuition may prove a valuable asset to us.” She smiles ever so slightly, for the first time since Eve has met her, and says, “I’d like to offer you a job.”

“A job?” Eve stirs her tea for something to do with her hands, trying not to appear too eager. “What would my responsibilities be?”

“Keep doing what you’ve been doing, but with our considerable resources at your disposal. Watch her. Track her. Find her. You get to keep doing what you love, and we’ll dispose of her once and for all.”

Eve scrapes her spoon along the sides of her teacup as she considers. It’s like all of her greatest dreams have come to life, but something about it feels too easy, and it makes her suspicious.

“We’d pay you a handsome commission, of course,” Carolyn adds. “We’re quite well-funded.”

“I can’t.” Eve stands up, no longer concerned about waiting for her food. “I’m very flattered, but I can’t.”

Carolyn appears neither offended nor shocked at Eve’s refusal, and merely says in a measured tone, “Might I ask why not?”

“I like working at my own speed.” Eve herself is only half convinced by her weak justification, but something inside her – her _intuition_ – compels her to decline. Or maybe it’s just her pride.

“Very well. I won’t push you, but I invite you to take more time to think before you make your final decision. The offer remains on the table.” Carolyn dabs at her mouth with her napkin, then adds, “For now.”

Eve begins to go. Carolyn calls out, “You likely don’t need me to tell you this, Eve, but be careful. She has seen your face. She knows your scent. You should assume that wherever you are, she is able to find you. I advise you to stay at home for a few days at least. You’ll be safe there as long as you don’t invite her in.”

“That bit’s real?” Eve can’t help but grin with wonder at the confirmation.

“Yes. That bit is real.”

  
Eve knows going straight home would be the wisest course of action, but a part of her longs to return to the museum to see for herself if the vampire had disappeared. She decides to split the difference and return to work for the rest of the day, since she’s too restless to be at home; she needs something to keep her busy.

Bill asks her how her “investigation” went, and she leaves him with a quick and convincing command to “stuff it.” It’s easier to let him believe he was right; Eve found nothing out of the ordinary and doesn’t want to discuss it. As much as she longs to gloat, she has no proof to show him. And, she considers, Bill’s probably safer the less he knows.

As she sits at her desk filling out paperwork, she wonders why she turned down Carolyn’s offer. Getting paid to hunt down that vampire, the same one she’d been wanting to find for ages, with more support and expertise. Why does some small part of her object to that so ferociously? She can’t articulate it, but she figures she’ll sleep on it. Carolyn did say the offer was still open. For now.

When five o’clock finally comes around, Eve notes the sun is setting in the sky and hurries home faster than usual. 

She finds Niko sprawled on the couch when she enters. “How are you?” she asks; it’ll be much easier to keep the conversation on his day rather than try to describe her own.

“It’s been a day,” he groans. “The students were a special kind of obnoxious. This is the first conversation I’ve had all day that didn’t begin with the word ‘penisface’. That’s their new favorite word, for some reason.”

“I have to admit that’s an awesome word,” Eve laughs, “but I’ll try to restrain myself.”

“I have a deep need for takeaway Indian food and a movie,” Niko says. “Are you in?”

“You don’t wanna cook? Must’ve been a really rough day.”

“Better now that you’re here,” Niko grins, and Eve bends down to give him a quick kiss.

“You sit. I’ll order,” Eve says, and rummages in her pockets before muttering “Shit.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t be mad,” Eve says with a grimace. “I lost my phone.”

“I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed,” Niko says, half-joking. “You can’t be trusted with anything, can you?”

As Eve starts towards the kitchen to use the landline, suddenly, it rings. “Just ignore it,” Niko calls to her. “Someone’s been crank calling all afternoon. Hanging up as soon as I answer.”

Eve figures picking it up will be faster than letting it go to the machine, so she presses the call button and says, “Hello?”

“Finally,” a voice with a thick accent replies. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever get home. You know, you should be careful after sundown – dangerous things come out at night.”

“It’s you,” Eve says, wishing she had something more clever or intimidating to offer. What exactly does one say when a vampire makes a call to one’s home phone?

“Obviously it’s me.” The accent sounds Eastern European; Russian, if Eve had to place a guess. “Why did you run away? I only wanted to say hello.”

“Well then?”

“Hello.” 

A few seconds pass, with silence on the other end of the line. Then the voice prompts, “This is where you would say hello back, and maybe tell me your name.”

When Eve refuses to answer yet again, she hears a sigh on the other end, then, “Fine, I’ll get us started. My name is Villanelle. And you are…?”

“I won’t tell you anything,” Eve says, feeling a rush of defiance. 

“How else will I return your phone to you?” the vampire – _Villanelle,_ Eve thinks, _what an unusual name_ – asks in a dry tone. 

“How did you escape the hunters?” Eve demands. 

“You’re a strange person,” Villanelle counters. “You’re all secretive over your name, but your passcode is 1234?”

Eve ignores the mocking, and asks again, “If you had an escape route, why were you still hanging around the scene of the crime when I was there?”

Villanelle chuckles, “I didn’t leave. I hid inside the hot water heater. It was very uncomfortable.”

“Oh,” Eve says, trying not to sound too impressed. 

“Are you with them?” Villanelle asks.

“I… don’t know.”

“Do you want to _hunt_ me?”

“I… well…” Eve stumbles over her words, not prepared to justify her motivations to a monster. “You’ve killed a lot of people.”

“Like who?” Villanelle says innocently.

“The guy in the museum. And the guy with the lasagna. And in Barcelona and Vienna…” Eve trails off as she remembers perhaps she shouldn’t reveal her full hand.

“You’ve been watching longer than I thought,” Villanelle says, sounding satisfied rather than intimidated by Eve’s show of knowledge. “But no more watching from afar. You’re in the middle of it now.”

“You won’t find me,” Eve says. It’s much easier to feel courageous when she isn’t staring down the vampire from a few feet away. “I’m not some naïve human ripe for the picking.”

“No, you’re not. But I will find you. Even though you won’t tell me your name, and all I know about you is that you smell…” Villanelle inhales and exhales audibly, “…delectable.”

A shiver runs down Eve’s spine. She understands that Villanelle’s statement, coming from a vampire, is meant as a threat, but she can’t help but think it sounds more like a compliment.

“Don’t worry, I won’t keep you much longer,” Villanelle says. “Enjoy your night. See you soon,” she says, casual as if they were old friends catching up, and then the call ends.

“Who was it?” Niko asks as Eve shuffles back into the living room.

“Someone found my phone,” Eve replies.

“Lucky you, off the hook this time,” Niko yawns and sits upright. “Which version of _Dracula_ do you want to watch tonight? Gary Oldman or Bela Lugosi?”

“Actually, let’s watch something regular. You pick,” Eve says, climbing onto the couch and curling up next to Niko.

Niko puts an arm around her and uses his other hand to put on _Love, Actually._ It’s his favorite; he’d watch it in any season. Eve lays her head against Niko’s chest and zones out through the introduction of the movie, thinking only of the picture Carolyn had shown her at lunch, and the same face in real life, on the vampire. Villanelle. What a strange moniker; somehow fitting for an immortal creature. A one-namer, like Dracula. Eve wonders how famous a vampire has to get before they can start going by a single name.

“Eve?” Niko asks, and Eve can feel the vibrations of his voice through his chest. “Did you ever order the food?”

Eve heads back to the kitchen, full of shame. “Guess I just got… distracted.”

As she dials their favorite Indian restaurant, Eve can barely rattle off the order as she hears the same words echo in her mind, over and over: _“See you soon.”_

She’s not sure if the buzzing in her brain is from fear, or excitement. Suddenly, she puts together why she didn’t want to join Carolyn’s team of hunters.

She wants to find Villanelle all on her own. Before the Silver League tracks her down and turns her to dust. Villanelle is Eve’s first vampire, and Eve is not ready to say goodbye to her just yet. Not until she knows more.

“See you soon,” Eve murmurs under her breath, as if responding to the words in her mind. She certainly will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! <3
> 
> You can also follow me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)!


	3. Recruit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Carolyn's advice, Eve takes a personal day and tries to track Villanelle's movements.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, fam, I can't thank you all enough for coming along on this ride with me. I am a creature who feeds on validation so every single one of your comments means the world to me. Let's have some more vampire fun!!!

“Come on then, get up. I know you like to sleep in but it’s seven-fifty, you need to move your arse.”

Eve blinks herself awake and raises her head a few inches. Right, Niko doesn’t know that she’s already decided to take a personal day. She groans and turns over.

She hears footsteps, then feels Niko’s big hand on her shoulder, shaking her softly. “Come on, sleepyhead, next one won’t be so gentle.”

“I’m gonna call in to work. I’m sick.”

“Sick with what?” Niko reaches a hand to feel Eve’s forehead.

“Do you need to take my temperature? I’m forty-eight years old, Niko, and I feel like crap. I’m staying home.” Of course, as a forty-eight year old woman, Eve can stay home from work for any reason she damn well pleases, but if she tells Niko she’s playing hooky, he will inevitably want to to do the same and turn it into a romantic day. Eve doesn’t have time for that now; she has too much to do.

“Not an accusation, love. Just want to make sure you won’t be dead before I come home.”

“I’ll be fine,” Eve promises. “I just need more sleep.”

“I’ve got to go. Feel better.” Niko bids her farewell with a pat on the head rather than a kiss. “Got to be careful, now. One of us has to stay healthy and work for a living.”

 _What a dork,_ Eve thinks as she hears his footsteps descending the stairs, and then the door closing behind him. As long as she’s home, she might as well sleep in a little, so she turns over, but finds that she can’t fall back asleep. Now that Niko has left, the urge to begin her hunt is too strong to resist.

She heads down to the kitchen, and while brewing herself an extra-strong batch of coffee, remembers she needs to call in to work. Luckily, she knows Bill’s number by heart, so she picks up the landline and dials. 

Bill answers promptly. “Oi. Are you avoiding me?”

“I’m sick,” Eve replies, trying to make her voice sound ragged.

“You see, I don’t believe you,” Bill says, and Eve senses a gloat incoming. “I think you’re afraid to show your face because you know I’ve heard about what really happened on your little trip to the museum. You got caught in the act by Carolyn Martens. Did you think no one would hear about how you ran her down in the street? No wonder you didn’t want to talk about it yesterday.”

“That’s only partially accurate.”

“Get your arse down here,” Bill commands. “I don’t feel like doing your job just because your ego is bruised.”

“You want the truth?” Eve says, growing impatient. “I’m laying low because I may have pissed off the vampire that killed those people, and I’m in mortal danger.”

Eve can practically hear Bill’s eyes rolling. “Let me know when you’re ready to admit defeat. Sooner rather than later, if you please. I’ll need to stay late to cover for you.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Tell it to Keiko and the nanny.” With that, Bill hangs up. Eve feels bad for leaving him to work alone, but he didn’t have to be such a penisface about it. She’ll take him out to lunch next week to make up for it.

Eve brings her coffee up to her study and holes up to investigate. Today will be crucial. Now that she’s resolved to take her chances finding Villanelle on her own, she figures she has a relatively short window before the vampire flits off to another European city, as seems to be her habit. Last night, Eve had been to excited to start her first proper vampire hunt, but now that it’s time to sit down and start, it seems much more daunting.

Sure, she got lucky once, but is she really so prideful to think that she can track down Europe’s most elusive vampire, who has escaped the clutches of the Silver League multiple times? For that matter, can Eve find her a second time before the Silver League does?

 _Yes,_ says Eve’s ego, reflexively. Because she has one very important advantage over the hunters. She knows that Villanelle has her phone.

Eve sets up her laptop on her desk and opens the Find My Phone app. After entering her credentials to prove she’s really her and asserting _Yes, I really do want to track my phone,_ she is very annoyed to be informed that it cannot be found at the moment. Villanelle is evidently tech-savvy enough to have turned the phone off so she couldn’t be tracked. The “last known location” is the museum, so that doesn’t help Eve at all.

It’s daylight, she remembers. Of course Villanelle wouldn’t be out and about right now, so at least she isn’t missing any movement – or would she? She managed the gallery murder during the day somehow, so maybe she has tricks for getting around in spite of the daylight.

Lacking any location clue, Eve decides to review all the other mysterious murders she’d flagged as vampiric over the past several months, now that she can put them in context. She tries to picture Villanelle knocking on the apartment door of the poor man in the middle of making lasagna. It’s easy to imagine her dazzling him and charming her way into an invitation to come inside and kill him. She likewise pictures the vampire in Vienna, Barcelona, every city across Europe, planning elaborate scenarios for kills that wouldn’t look like a vampire did them, and yet, at the same time, were so obvious.

Why on earth would she go to that much trouble for each kill? There are easier ways to get blood to drink. Eve can’t find any sort of pattern in the victims, it was always the circumstances rather than the victim profile that caught her attention. So why would Villanelle, mysterious, fashionable, _just-wanted-to-say-hello_ Villanelle do this?

Boredom, Eve supposes. That’s why she would do it, anyway, if she were a vampire. The prospect of eternity is the most intimidating part of being undead; Eve suspects that run-of-the-mill blood-drinking must get old after a while. Perhaps after years, or centuries, of doing the traditional vampire thing, Villanelle is bored out of her mind. 

Eve almost feels bad for her, in a way; at least humans only have to amuse themselves for eighty-odd years before getting the boot. She can’t blame Villanelle for deciding after who knows how many years to spice up her second life by challenging herself. 

How to kill in the most unusual way. How to attract the attention of the hunters, just enough to get a good chase going, but not so much to get caught. That’s Villanelle’s motivation, Eve feels surer with every second. Why else would she hang around the scene of her crime in plain sight? Why else would she call Eve on the phone?

Well, if it’s attention she wants, Eve is well-equipped to provide that. If only Villanelle would turn on the stupid phone… but no new location data appears all day.

Niko arrives home in the late afternoon and brings Eve a bottle of ginger ale, her favorite thing when she’s sick. She feels too guilty to confess to him that she was never really sick, so she starts drinking it right out of the bottle and lets him pamper her by cooking chicken noodle soup. All the while, she keeps refreshing Find My Phone, to no avail.

Shortly after sundown, just as Eve is slurping up the last of her soup, her laptop gives a low _ding,_ and a flashing dot appears on the map to show that her phone has been located. Villanelle is awake.

Eve feels adrenaline start to course through her veins, and has to resist the urge to run out the door and immediately go to that location to catch Villanelle. The sane part of her realizes it would be madness to go running straight into a vampire’s lair after sundown, so she notes down the address where the phone appeared, and forces herself to stay put and observe for the night.

Even if she can’t go meet Villanelle tonight, she can at least observe her movements. Maybe seeing her typical habits and patterns will help Eve to formulate a plan of what to do next. Eve remains glued to her laptop screen, rapt, as the dot representing her phone’s location moves through London.

At first, Eve can’t surmise much from the movements. Villanelle seems to be wandering around at a casual, human pace, but her path doesn’t seem to indicate a clear destination, as she sometimes doubles back or goes in circles. Eve pictures Villanelle walking down the street. Is she on the prowl, searching for her next meal? How does a vampire decide who to drink from, Eve wonders? Does it have to do with appearance, or size, or – Villanelle had told Eve she smelled “delectable”, after all…

After twenty minutes or so, the meandering lessens, and Villanelle starts moving in one direction consistently. Eve supposes she’s made up her mind of what she wants to do for the night – picked a human to eat? Or maybe she’ll just catch a movie, or whatever else vampires did for fun? 

Eve looks around on the digital map of London to wonder about where Villanelle might end up, then, with a lurch of her stomach, realizes she knows exactly where the vampire is headed.

Carolyn’s parting words echo in Eve’s head: _“She knows your scent. You should assume that wherever you are, she is able to find you.”_ Villanelle is clearly following the trail of Eve’s scent, to where it is the strongest, where she spends even more time than she does at home: the MI5 office.

Where Bill is still working late. Alone.

Maybe he’d gone home after all? Eve hopes so, but can’t trust her hope. She runs to the kitchen and dials Bill’s phone, but he doesn’t pick up. 

Panicking, Eve runs towards the door, slipping on the first shoes she can find, not bothering with a coat. “Where are you going? Is something wrong?” Niko calls out with concern.

“Don’t worry! Be back soon!” Eve shouts, not bothering to explain further as she runs out the door. She hopes she will be back soon. She hopes she isn’t running right into the vampire’s trap, but what else can she do? Bill doesn’t know about the monster coming his way, all thanks to Eve.

She makes her way to MI5 as fast as she possibly can, running up the stairs two at a time. Please, please, please, let him be alive.

When she reaches the office and opens the door, she screams.

Bill is in his desk chair, like normal, but his head hangs limply at his shoulder and his eyes are glassy, empty. He is posed with a phone in his hands – _Eve’s_ phone – as if he’s taking a picture. On his neck, there’s a bite mark, that looks just like any human could’ve done it – no twin fang marks, nothing but a slight red tinge from the last few drops of blood that clung to the wound.

Eve rushes to him and frantically checks for a pulse, though she knows it’s too late. She lets out another wail. Bill didn’t deserve this.

Only then, in her closeness to him, does she notice that he’s not merely posed like he was taking a picture; there is, in fact, a new picture on her phone screen. Hands shaking, Eve takes the phone and examines the photo Villanelle took before she left: a simple shot of the name placard on Eve’s desk. 

_Eve Polastri._

The sound of approaching footsteps echoes down the hallway – someone must have heard Eve scream. Eve snaps back into action, and she decides to pocket her phone – this whole mess will be hard enough to explain already. But she hesitates, and makes sure to snap a picture to document the situation, plus a close up of the bite, before stuffing her phone away and trying to compose herself as the helpful witnesses appear at the door.

The few other people who were working at night, including a couple of gung-ho assistants and a few custodial workers cluster at the door to see Bill’s body. One young intern with neatly combed hair who seems like he’s gunning for a leadership position someday tells them all to step back; he’s going to call the police.

“Take a breath, ma’am, it’s going to be alright, the police will take care of it,” commands the intern, who has a lot of gall for someone who was probably in preschool when Eve started at MI5.

Luckily, before Eve can slap him, who else should show up on the scene but Carolyn Martens. Eve should’ve expected the illustrious chair of the Silver League to know of all vampiric goings-on, but how is she always so fast? Is there some kind of bat-signal that calls her to the scene of every vampiric murder?

The overconfident intern looks like he’s about to tell Carolyn to stand back as well, but she dismisses him with a quick “Thank you,” and he finally relents to Carolyn’s air of effortless authority.

Now that the two of them are alone, Eve shifts awkwardly, waiting for Carolyn’s reaction to the scene. An “I told you so”, perhaps? Would she chastise Eve for her carelessness in putting an innocent life in danger, or for letting the vampire get away?

“He seemed a good man,” Carolyn says quietly.

“He was a real dick,” Eve says. “But a great man.”

“I’m sorry,” Carolyn says, with a tiredness to her voice that suggests she knows all too well what Eve is feeling in this moment.

Bill says nothing, and he never will again. No more sarcastic remarks. No more pushing Eve to be her best. No more swapping lunches. Even the version of his voice in Eve’s head is gone; Villanelle has taken all of that out of the world with one small bite.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Eve says, her voice hoarse. “I’ll accept your offer.”

Carolyn merely nods, and Eve appreciates that she is classy enough not to gloat. 

Any hint of sympathy Eve had for Villanelle has been shattered and replaced with steely resolve. Whatever it takes, Eve will personally make sure that the demon’s second death is more painful than her first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Bill. :(
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable), ya filthy vampire loving animals!


	4. Bloodlust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve has her first day on the job as an official vampire hunter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Kara for once again beta reading this chapter, and shoutout to the discord fam for consulting about how much kinky vampire shit is TOO much kinky vampire shit ;)

On Eve’s first day working for the Silver League, touted as the “most elite group of hunters in Western Europe”, she expects to be directed to a huge gothic castle, or perhaps an expansive underground lair. She’s shocked when the address she was given instead turns out to be Carolyn’s house.

Only a few moments after Eve rings the bell, Carolyn swings open the door and says, “Hello, Eve,” then promptly walks away, back into the house.

Eve stands on the stoop, unsure if she’s forgotten social norms or if Carolyn is in fact, acting like a loon. “Hello?” she calls down the hallway.

“Yes, hello,” she hears the faint reply. Maybe she was in the middle of some important vampire hunting business and had no time for pleasantries? Eve elects to follow Carolyn inside and see what happens.

From outside it was obvious that the house was big, but the interior is even grander than Eve could’ve predicted. It figures that Carolyn has impeccable taste in design as fits with her general demeanor of casual superiority. The decor is simple, with a mostly white and grey color scheme that is at once stark and elegant.

Eve walks past a large staircase and down a hallway until she reaches the kitchen, which is of course, huge; it’s the kind of kitchen they’d see on home improvement reality shows that would make Niko drool and lament his tiny teacher’s salary. Carolyn stands by the stove, pouring hot water into a mug. 

“I apologize for the brusque reception, but it’s a necessary precaution,” Carolyn says. “We can’t risk an accidental invitation; even a beckoning gesture can be enough. That brings me to our first rule here, which is also the most important: you must never, under any circumstances, invite anyone into this house. Even one of our own. Understood?”

Eve nods. Every bit of Carolyn’s behavior had been measured, from texting Eve the address with no context, no instruction to “come in when you arrive”, no verbal or physical welcome – all carefully planned to stop any demon who tried to infiltrate their ranks at the threshold.

“Well, now you know I’m human,” Eve says. “Did you really suspect otherwise?”

“You’ll learn that it’s impossible to be too careful in our line of work,” Carolyn says, placing a tea bag in the mug to steep. Eve likes that she calls it _our_ line of work. “Milk or sugar?”

“Neither, thank you,” Eve replies. “So safety is the reason for running operations out of your house?”

“Yes,” Carolyn replies, placing the steaming cup of tea on the kitchen island in front of Eve. “Before, we tried using other spaces. We had a very nice office downtown, for a while, and we believed that if at least one member of our team slept there each night, it would count as a residence and afford us the relevant protections thereof. We later found out that it did not.” Carolyn’s clipped tone clearly indicates that the discovery came at a great cost, and Eve is afraid to ask for more details.

“So…” Eve asks, “Where is everybody?”

Carolyn raises her voice only slightly to call out, “Kenny!”

A few seconds later, a young man in a polo and shorts appears from the door to the living room. Eve supposes he must be Kenny. “Show Eve around, would you? I have business to attend to.”

Kenny silently motions for Eve to follow him. Not a very social fellow, apparently.

He leads Eve into the living room, which isn’t overly large but feels much more spacious than it is thanks to high ceilings and a wall of large windows that allow the room to fill with natural light. A couple of desks with computers and notepads are arranged by the window, and the other walls are framed with tall bookcases full of leather-bound volumes. Several ornately upholstered couches fill the middle of the room, with three people currently seated upon them.

“Everyone, this is Eve,” Kenny says.

“This is… everyone?” Eve asks. 

“For now, at least. I’m Elena,” says a young woman with her feet propped up on the coffee table.

“Jess,” offers a tall, very pregnant woman perched on the arm of one of the couches.

“Hugo. It’s a pleasure,” says the other man, whose shirt is unbuttoned perhaps one button too many, offering his hand for Eve to shake. 

“You’re the ‘most elite group of hunters in Western Europe’, and there’s only five of you?” Eve asks. 

“Six, now that you’re here,” Elena supplies cheerfully.

“Sorry, I’m a little surprised, that’s all. I expected more.”

Jess, who seems to be the most experienced voice in the room, explains, “We do have more members that are not always with us. Some are based in other cities around Europe; others are out working in the field.”

“And some are dead,” says Hugo, standing and squaring off with Eve. “Does that scare you?”

“Hugo’s a prick, but he’s not wrong,” Jess says. “We have lost some great hunters in the line of duty. Are you sure you want to join? There’s no shame if you’d rather go home now.”

“I’m not scared,” Eve declares. “And frankly, I think I’m safer with you all than I am on my own.” Eve takes off her coat. “When do I start?”

“You’re a tracker, right?” Elena says.

“I guess so,” Eve replies, never having thought about her specialization, only having been a proper hunter for about ten minutes.

“Then you’ll work closely with Kenny and me,” Elena says.

“We’re intelligence,” Kenny adds. 

“Are you allowed to share privileged information with me now that I’m part of the League?” Eve asks excitedly, remembering the photo of Villanelle that Carolyn had dangled before her at lunch the other day. “About our target, I mean.” Eve remembers that she needs to make a good impression on these people, and that starts by using serious words like _“target”_ , rather than _“exceptionally beautiful killing machine”_.

“Indeed. I’ll bring you up to speed.” Elena goes over to one of the computers, and with a few clicks, pulls up a high-resolution scan of the photo Carolyn had shown Eve. The cheerful smile on Villanelle’s face looks strangely menacing now that Eve has seen what those teeth did to Bill.

“This is from before she turned,” Elena explains, answering Eve’s unasked question of how the photo could even exist. “After months of research, we were fairly confident that this was her identity before she changed, but…”

“None of us ever got close enough to get a good look at her face,” Kenny says, “Well, none that are still with us.”

“But, thanks to your exceptional bravery the other day, we now know our most wanted is officially known as Oksana Astankova.”

“That’s not it,” Eve says, without missing a beat.

Elena frowns. “I’m not great at Russian, but I think that’s how you say it.”

“No, I mean, that’s not what she calls herself. Maybe it’s her real name, but now she goes by Villanelle.”

Eve feels the stares of all four of the hunters land on her suspiciously. “Where did you get that from?” Elena asks.

“She told me… on the phone.” Eve’s cheeks grow warm with embarrassment as all of them stare at her with disbelief. “I’ll explain later. Tell me what you know about her past.”

With an eyebrow raised to indicate that they will _definitely_ talk more about that phone call later, Elena explains, “She was a high school student in Moscow, ’til she murdered the husband of one of her teachers.”

“She drank from him?”

“No, it was before she turned. Here’s her mugshot,” Kenny, now seated at the other computer, pulls up another photo of Villanelle, less flattering than the school portrait. She looked battered, bruised, and unhappy.

“You left out the best part, Kenny. She chopped the bloke’s knob off,” Elena says, with half horror, half awe. “Seems she was a right psycho even before having her soul sucked out, so it’s no wonder she’s become the trickiest little vamp we’ve ever seen.”

Eve looks back to Kenny, who blushes and declines to comment further on the castration, instead continuing to describe Oksana’s life. “She spent three years in prison, then was declared dead. We reckon someone turned her and helped her escape, but we don’t know who, or why.”

“That was four years ago,” Elena supplies. “And we started to catch on to her trail of murders last year. Who knows what her true body count is between then and now. Maybe triple digits.”

Eve tries to picture one hundred corpses, stacked in a pile; nameless, faceless bodies, except for Bill, perched on the very top of the mountain. The thought is horrifying enough to make her stomach do somersaults.

“Now that we’ve got confirmation on her identity, Elena and I will be in overdrive mode trying to piece together whatever we can to get a lead on her while she’s still nearby,” says Kenny.

“So feel free to drop in and lend us your famous _intuition_ if you ever get a chance,” Elena adds. Eve is growing to like her already.

She turns to Hugo, the smarmy young one. “So that’s Intelligence. What are you for, then?”

“Jess and I handle the delicates,” Hugo says with a smirk.

“Meaning…?”

“Stab. Poof.” Hugo mimes thrusting a stake into a vampire’s heart with a wicked grin.

Eve looks at Jess with new admiration. “No maternity leave in the Silver League?”

“Vampires don’t stop killing just because I’ve gone and gotten myself knocked up.”

Eve nods with respect. Jess must be a real professional, she thinks to herself. “So in terms of actual slaying. Does it have to be a stake through the heart? Or could you kill a vampire with a sword or a gun? That’s one bit the different stories never agree on.”

“Any kind of delivery system will do, so long as it’s pointy and wooden and goes through the heart.” Hugo beckons for Eve to follow, and leads her back into the kitchen. He bends to a low drawer set into the island, then pulls it open to reveal a wide assortment of stakes and bows. Selecting a splintery wooden stake from the arsenal, so thick his hand barely closes around it, he twirls it with a skilled flourish. “Want me to show you how to handle one of these?”

“Shove off Hugo, she doesn’t need your phallus innuendo right now,” Jess says, handing Eve a more modestly proportioned stake. “You already know the heart’s where you want it to go, but remember it’s a bit more centered than you expect it to be. In the case of our lady vampire, you’ll want to aim for the right side of the left tit.”

Eve tries not to blush as she pictures Villanelle’s left tit. “Alright, that makes sense.”

Jess takes Eve’s hand and gently guides her to place the stake on the correct spot on Jess’s chest. “It takes more force than you’d think to get the stake through the flesh into the heart, so don’t hold back.” Jess raises an eyebrow. “Strong thrust. Don’t be afraid to really shove it in there.”

“That’s what she said!”

“Hugo, go put a pound in the jar.” Jess shakes her head and adds, under her breath, “Every single day. You have no idea.”

“My husband is a high school teacher.”

“Ah, he’d understand.” Jess smiles, and Eve is glad to be getting on already with the band of hunters. She had been a bit anxious that they might be a stuffy and serious bunch, but with each moment she feels better about her decision to accept Carolyn’s offer. The Silver League is where she belongs, where she has always belonged, and fate has finally helped her find her way there.

The day flies by in the blink of an eye, and soon it’s time for Eve to head home. Go home now, they explain, and enjoy it – there will be times when they’re called on to work all night, as is natural when hunting nocturnal creatures.

Carolyn returns from whatever private place she had retreated to in order to see Eve out. “What did you think of your first day?”

“I think it’s fucking awesome,” Eve says, with a laugh. “I think, if hunting vampires is this cool, I’m okay that it took forty years for my wish to come true.”

“It’s spectacular, isn’t it?” Carolyn smiles a little. “Especially when it’s new. I can still remember the thrill of my first vampire…” Her eyes go someplace far away; Eve can tell she’s remembering her younger days. How many vampires has Carolyn staked in her time, Eve wonders? 

“I’ve learned so much already today, but one thing is still bugging me,” Eve says.

“Ask away,” Carolyn replies.

“How did you get there so fast, to Bill, I mean? Is there some kind of… vampire kill alarm tech? If so, couldn’t we use that to get to Villanelle the next time she kills?”

“Nothing so exciting as that, I’m afraid,” Carolyn says. “We were watching _you_.”

A shiver runs down Eve’s spine, as she is both chilled and impressed. Even if the Silver League didn’t have her on their books, they would still get the benefits of anything she discovered on her own, or, on the other hand, if Villanelle came to find Eve, they’d get her as well. Eve senses that she’s only beginning to discover how skilled Carolyn is… and how lethal she is.

Eve feels grateful to be on Carolyn’s side.

  
As she returns home, Eve feels more satisfied with a day’s work than she has in years. 

“How was work?” Niko asks, catching her while she’s still slipping off her shoes. There’s a hint of passive aggression to his tone, which Eve has to admit is deserved, since she has been acting rather cagey around Niko ever since her first encounter with Villanelle.

“It was good. Really, good, actually,” Eve says. “I got a new job.”

“Where did that come from?”

“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, it’s just – it was really sudden, and it wasn’t clear that it was going to pan out. I didn’t want to say anything until it was a done deal.”

“Well, what is it?” Niko asks, encouragingly.

Eve almost tells him. Niko has always been more supportive than other people in her life when it came to her vampire fixation, so maybe it’s safe. On the other hand, maybe he’ll think she’s finally gone off the deep end and have her committed. But then again, shouldn’t she feel comfortable being honest with her husband, of all people?

As she opens her mouth to form the first syllable, a tiny doubt itches at the back of her mind, saying, _“He won’t believe you. He never has.”_

“I got recruited by MI6,” she says. “As an investigator.”

“That’s incredible!” Niko says, embracing her. He kisses Eve, then whispers in her ear, “Do they know about your affiliations with creatures of the night?”

“Yes, incidentally, MI6 is run completely by vampires.” 

“I knew something dodgy was going on up there.”

“Now that I’ve told you, I’ll have to kill you.” It’s easier this way; safer to keep it a joke with him.   
Keep him at a safe distance. Make sure he doesn’t end up like Bill.

When Eve retreats to her study after dinner, she makes sure that the door is tightly shut before taking out the stake that Jess had given her. Time to begin to take herself seriously as a hunter, and make sure she’s prepared to defend herself the next time she sees Villanelle’s stupid, symmetrical face.

She grips the stake in her right hand, then tries it in her left, just to see how it feels. Nope, the dominant hand is definitely the way to go for this. Turning to the mirror hung on the inside of the door, she examines herself holding the stake, flexing so the tendons in her forearm stand out. Yeah, she looks like a real badass.

Looking the part isn’t enough, though. Eve knows she needs to practice her thrust, because the last thing she needs is to come up short when the time comes. After a few impotent swipes through the air, Eve decides that the small flat cushion on her desk chair is a necessary sacrifice, and props it on her thighs.

The well-worn cushion is maybe five or six inches thick, so Eve figures it will offer a similar level of resistance to a chest cavity. Not that she has much experience with the real thing, but it’s better than nothing at least.

 _Get ready,_ she tells herself. _In real life, you’ll only get one shot at this, so you have to make it count. No false starts._ She has to imagine really driving this stake into Villanelle’s heart. Straight through her left tit. Through those perfectly proportioned breasts, not far beneath that glowing face…

Eve is losing focus already, and she can’t afford that. She needs to remember why she’s doing this. She grabs her phone and pulls up the picture of Bill – no, not Bill – Bill’s _corpse_. 

Somewhere, Villanelle is walking around, full to the brim with Bill’s blood. She made a meal out of him, just to get Eve’s attention. Eve zooms in on the bite mark. Her teeth were right there; they sunk into Bill’s neck, she sucked the life from him bit by bit until it was gone. And she walked away satisfied. And she’ll do it again if Eve doesn’t stop her.

Eve swings the stake with all the strength her muscles and bones will allow, piercing the pillow and sending a bolt of pain into her leg. Her eyes widen as she realizes she stabbed clean through the pillow and broke the skin of her thigh, just above her knee.

Tossing the cushion aside, Eve squeezes the skin of her thigh as a thin trickle of blood oozes out. Her thrust was strong enough, that was for sure; if that pillow had been Villanelle, she’d be dust.

Before she realizes what she’s doing, Eve wipes up the trickle of blood onto her index finger and pops it into her mouth. She’s tasted blood before, obviously, when getting a tooth pulled, or when flossing for the first time in too long, but she’s never ingested it purposefully, for the desire of it… 

What is it about this salty, thin taste that drives Villanelle so mad? Eve pictures the bite mark on Bill’s neck again, and imagines how Villanelle must have felt putting her lips to the wound, drinking Bill’s life away gulp by gulp. How many mouthfuls did it take? How many swallows were required to ingest his entire contents?

And if Villanelle were here now, how quickly would she descend on Eve’s cut, and drink her dry? Would she remain composed, and play with Eve before killing her, or would the scent from Eve’s open would cause her to succumb instantly to bloodlust?

Zombielike, Eve bends forward, placing her lips around the cut. Would Villanelle drink from it gently, lapping up Eve’s blood like a cat? Would it be even faster – would she gorge herself so quickly she might choke on Eve’s blood? _You smell delectable,_ she said – more delectable than other humans, enough to make Villanelle lose all self control? 

Eve suddenly snaps out of her trance and bolts her head up. What’s she doing? Staggering to the bathroom, she retrieves a band-aid and covers up her cut.

Looking in the mirror, Eve sees a crazy person staring back at her. Her hair is a mess, the dark circles under her eyes are larger than ever, and her chin is stained with a smudge of her own blood.

Eve splashes water on her face and brushes her teeth quickly before sneaking quietly into her room to join Niko in bed. All of these nights staying up chasing vampires or worrying about where to find them next are taking a serious toll on her. She needs sleep, big time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to finally bring the whole crew in!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's been reading along!! Come say hello on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)! I promise I don't bite, but I DO post all the stupid vampire puns I restrain myself from including in this fic.


	5. Sting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team of hunters stakes out Villanelle's apartment and prepares a trap for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished my [other ongoing fic,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750973) so now I'm free to focus all my energies on this.... plus another AU I am planning that I hope you all will like ;) 
> 
> But first... vampires!

“Pass the Cheetos.”

Eve hands the crumpled bag over to Elena without looking, keeping her binoculars trained on the entrance to the apartment building across the street.

It’s their third night sitting in the same beige hotel room, staking out the address that Eve had marked down of where her phone had appeared the night Villanelle killed Bill. They haven’t caught so much as a glimpse of the vampire yet, and Eve is wondering when they’ll throw in the towel and admit that maybe it was just a random location with no significance, but Carolyn hasn’t given them the order to stand down yet.

Niko thinks she’s staking out the hideout of a drug trafficker for MI6. Carolyn even supplied Eve with some fake papers on MI6 letterhead for her to carry around at home. Lying to Niko is becoming like a second job, but it’s a second job Eve is rather good at, and now that the paychecks have started coming in, he doesn’t question the legitimacy of Eve’s position. (Carolyn wasn’t kidding about the pay in the Silver League being generous, though Eve does wonder where the money comes from.)

Kenny and Hugo take the first half of each night shift, while Eve and Elena take the second. They’ve built a great rapport in the hours they’ve spent sitting in this room with nothing else to do but chat and eat processed food.

“Can I ask you some things about vampires?” Eve says. “Since you’ve met more than I have?”

“Sure,” Elena mumbles around a mouthful of Cheetos.

“Are they all, um, attractive? I mean, is that part of the transformation.”

Elena begins to laugh hysterically, covering her mouth to prevent an explosion of cheese dust.

“Shut up!” Eve says, her cheeks growing hot with embarrassment. “I’ve only met one. I just wanted to know if Stephenie Meyer was right after all.”

“I’m sorry,” Elena says, catching her breath and wiping a tear from her eye. “It’s just funny because most are rather ugly, actually. And poorly groomed. But it’s understandable, isn’t it? Not being able to use a mirror and all.”

“Right…” Eve ponders this information. It was kind of a stupid question, she knew that, but it had been itching at the back of her brain, so she had to ask.

“So you think Villanelle is hot?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Sorry. You think she’s ‘attractive’.”

“Don’t you?”

Elena looks at Eve skeptically. “From the school portrait where she’s a minor, or the mugshot?”

“Right, you haven’t seen her in person,” Eve remembers. “She, uh… carried the transformation well.”

Elena’s jaw drops. “Oh my god, Eve, you want to fuck the vampire?”

“What? No!”

“You’re a nasty, kinky vampire fucker?”

“I’m married!”

“But if you weren’t, you’d have crazy vampire sex?”

“She killed my best friend,” Eve says. “The only way I want to fuck her is _over._ As in, fuck her over. God, that came out wrong.” Eve can tell that she’s babbling, and tries to get back on the right track. “I want to kill her. Next time I see her, I’m gonna shove this stake right into her left tit, like Jess taught me.”

Elena pops another Cheeto in her mouth and says, “Tell me more about her tit?”

“I hate you.” As Eve picks up her binoculars to stare at the doorway again, she sees an extremely familiar blonde figure walking towards it.

“Shit, Elena, look!” Eve hands off the binoculars to Elena, who eagerly looks where Eve directs.

“That’s her?”

“That’s her,” Eve confirms.

“Let’s call the team, then,” Elena says, licking orange dust from her fingertips. “And after watching her walk away? I think I understand where you’re coming from.”

“I’m gonna stake you, I swear.”

  
Eve and Elena remain poised, watching the entrance, while they await the arrival of the rest of the Silver League. Once Jess, Hugo, Kenny, and Carolyn reach the hotel room, they begin discussing the plan of attack.

“Jess, Hugo, and I will lead the charge,” Carolyn declares. “We’ll find her apartment and go in prepared for a fight.”

“Don’t worry about knocking on doors,” Elena says, still at the window, peering through the binoculars. “I caught her through the window. She’s second floor, fourth from the stairwell.”

“Thank you,” Carolyn says. “But we’ll go in prepared to check the rest in case she slips by us again. Kenny and Elena, we’ll have you stationed by the exits just in case.”

“But she can’t really escape,” Eve says. “The sun’s coming up.”

“She’s managed it before,” Hugo says.

“At the museum?” Eve asks. “She didn’t leave; she just hid from you. Look harder this time.”

“Jesus, Eve, have you been having more intimate chats with the vampire?” Hugo asks.

“Just the one,” Eve replies through gritted teeth.

“Though she found out more through that one chat that we had in months, Hugo,” Carolyn points out.

“She won’t get away from us this time,” Eve declares. “I’m coming in with you.”

“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” Kenny says. “Not to be rude or anything, but you’re the least experienced out of all of us.”

“I’ll be safe with the three of you though, right?” Eve is unsettled when her question, which she intended to be merely rhetorical, is met with an uncomfortable silence.

“We forget sometimes,” Jess says quietly, “that you’ve never seen a vampire in action.”

“What do you mean?”

Jess adopts a gravely serious tone. “Vampires are strong. They’re deadly. They’re predators, and we are their prey. Even with our level of expertise, even with all of our weaponry… No human would stand a chance against a vampire one-on-one, and even with three or four of us… There’s a good chance she’ll take some of us out with her.”

Eve wishes she hadn’t asked the question, for the air of determination and heroism in the room has immediately been replaced with a heavy fog of gloom. Of course the experienced hunters already had an unspoken knowledge that they might die in this attempt to slay Villanelle, but it was a cost they’d already made their peace with – until Eve had to put her foot in her mouth and bring it to the forefront of everyone’s minds again.

“I’m still coming with you,” Eve insists. It’s the least she can do to prove herself as a hunter, especially after bringing down the vibe.

“If you wish,” Carolyn says, and then silence falls again as each of them dutifully arms themselves with pieces from the rolling suitcase full of weapons Carolyn had brought. Eve decides to stick with the stake she’d practiced with, since it’s starting to feel comfortable in her hand, and she doesn’t trust herself to aim a bow properly.

Once they’re armed to the teeth, Carolyn asks, “Ready?” and all of the other hunters nod in response. They’re all ready to die for the cause, if that is how the day plays out.

Eve follows as Jess and Hugo lead the way up to second floor, towards the the fourth door from the stairwell.

“Right, here goes,” Jess says, and kicks the door once. As she readies a second kick, the door swings open, and a balding man with a white beard stands in the doorway.

“Hello, Carolyn,” he says warmly. “Come on in.”

“Hello,” Carolyn says, in her usual dry tone, but from Hugo and Jess’s gasps, and the way they excitedly run into the apartment to greet the man, Eve can tell that this man’s appearance must be more significant than Carolyn lets on.

“Konstantin?” Jess asks, as if she can’t believe it.

“You’re alive!” Hugo exclaims, slapping the man on the arm.

“Hugo, wait,” Carolyn cautions. For some reason, she doesn’t seem half as happy to see the man as the others do.

“You are right to be concerned,” Konstantin says. He pulls down at his turtleneck sweater to reveal a bite-shaped scar on the side of his neck.

Jess and Hugo raise their weapons and flinch away. “She turned you.”

“Not quite,” Konstantin says with an almost wistful tone, and nods his head toward a glass paneled armoire a few feet to his left, which shows his reflection in its murky surface.

Carolyn’s mouth goes thin with concern. “Is it even worth it for me to ask you where she is?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“I’m sorry,” Eve says, “But can someone tell me what the fuck is going on? Who is he?”

“He is… he _was_ one of us,” Jess says.

“He faced off with Villanelle on his own a few months ago and never came back. We thought he was dead.”

“But now he’s her thrall,” Carolyn says, matter-of-factly.

“Thrall?” Eve asks.

“Vampires can make a human their slave if they bite them but don’t kill them,” Jess explains. “He has to follow her every order.”

“Some hunters consider it a fate worse than death,” Carolyn murmurs.

“Oh god, are you saying we’re honor-bound to kill him?” Hugo says with horror. “I’m all for dusting vamps, but I don’t want our friend’s blood on my hands.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t kill me,” Konstantin chimes in.

“But if we kill the vampire, he will be freed. Don’t worry. We’re very close to taking care of it.” Carolyn takes Konstantin’s hand and squeezes it gently. Eve suspects they may have been more than colleagues.

“That is very sweet,” Konstantin says, kindness in his eyes. “But you are not close.”

“If he’s taken orders from her, why are we still here talking to him?” Eve asks. “He said can’t help us. Let’s look around. We know she came in, she’s probably hiding somewhere. Check the hot water heater.”

“Search if you like, but she’s already gone,” Konstantin says.

“You’d have to say that even if she were,” Jess points out.

“That is true. But she really is not here.”

Sure enough, after a thorough search of the entire building (Carolyn even uses her MI6 credentials to get access into the other apartments), they can’t find Villanelle anywhere, not even inside the water heater or any other appliance. After a few hours, and confirming with Kenny and Elena that the exits were secured the whole time, they are baffled.

“What did I tell you?” Konstantin says with a chuckle.

“Where’d she go? How’d she escape?” Jess says.

“I am not able to tell you that.”

“This was a bloody bust then, wasn’t it?” Hugo sighs, flopping down onto the couch. “At least we got a nice look around her flat. We learned she’s got expensive taste in clothes. What a breakthrough.”

“There is one thing I can tell you though,” Konstantin says. “I have to tell you, actually.” He looks directly at Eve, and says, “Eve Polastri, correct?”

“Yes,” Eve says, unsure.

Konstantin laughs. “She said you were ‘an Asian woman with amazing hair.’ I see that she wasn’t exaggerating. Well, this message is for you, Eve Polastri: ‘They are holding you back.’”

“They’re holding me back?” Eve repeats.

“That is the message,” Konstantin confirms.

Carolyn nods, deep in thought. “Perhaps we haven’t caught her today, but we still made a valuable discovery,” she says, looking to Konstantin. “You three, meet up with the others and return to headquarters. I’ll remain here and debrief with Konstantin. See if there isn’t any loophole in the vampire’s orders that will allow us to help him.”

“Clever as always,” Konstantin says with a smile. “Unfortunately, she is clever as well.” He pulls a gun out of his pocket, and Eve almost screams until she sees that Konstantin aims it at his own head. “Now that I have relayed the message, I was told I have to shoot myself if you do not leave promptly.”

“Holy hell, he’s not kidding,” Jess whispers.

“Isn’t there some way around it?” Hugo protests. “Shoot yourself in the foot or something! Let’s get you out of here!”

“Afraid not,” Konstantin says with a smile. “I’d rather not go this way, so please leave. You have thirty seconds…”

The foursome run for the door, none of them wanting to be the cause of Konstantin’s death simply by dawdling as they went. However, as they go, Carolyn offers a special farewell to Konstantin, in another language that sounds like Russian to Eve. From the tone, it sounds more intimate than anything Eve has ever heard Carolyn say in English.

Defeated, they return to Carolyn’s house.

“How did she know we were coming?” Elena asks.

“She didn’t just know we were coming,” Kenny adds, “She duped us. We saw her walk in and then she was gone…” 

“How? We searched every inch of that place,” Jess says.

“And ‘they’re holding you back’. What does that mean?” Hugo asks.

Everyone looks to Eve.

Carolyn takes the lead, “Eve, is there something you’re not telling us?”

“No!” Eve insists. “I told you guys everything. I saw her in the café. She called me on the phone. She killed Bill. That is it. There’s no other secret communication between us. I don’t know what the message means any more than you do.”

“I think it’s obvious what it means,” Elena pipes up. “She’s into you. Right? That’s the page that we’re all on?”

Kenny shifts around anxiously. “You should probably go on lockdown, Eve.”

“Lockdown?”

“Stay at home at all times. Normally it means only after sundown, but since Villanelle keeps escaping us during the day…”

Jess frowns. “I hate to say it, but I think he’s right.”

Eve can’t believe they’re jumping to such an extreme measure over something so small. “Just because that weird Russian guy said some message was from her? How do we know he’s really her thrall and not just a creep?” 

An awkward silence falls, and Eve realizes she overstepped.

“Konstantin was a great hunter,” Jess says.

“ _Is_ ,” Hugo corrects her.

“He wouldn’t have left us if he wasn’t under her control,” Jess declares.

“There’s been a lot of things you guys have thought ‘wouldn’t’ or ‘couldn’t’ happen lately, huh?” Eve can’t help the angry words from pouring out of her mouth. “Seems like Villanelle knows a lot of things you expert hunters don’t.”

Carolyn speaks up for the first time in several minutes. “Eve, I’m placing you on lockdown, effective immediately.”

Eve rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m being punished because she gave me a stupid one-sentence message.”

“It’s not a punishment, it’s for your protection,” Jess clarifies.

“I don’t need protecting.”

“You kind of do,” Elena points out.

“So what?” Eve says, “Are you gonna slap an ankle bracelet on me? Take shifts guarding my door?”

“No,” Carolyn says, “But if you don’t comply with our procedures, you can consider yourself fired.”

“You guys are so dramatic,” Eve mutters. “Fine. I’ll stay at home, but you have to promise to keep me in the loop of what’s going on.”

“Of course,” Kenny says, but his enthusiasm sounds forced.

  
Eve goes home, doing her best to put on a cheery front for Niko and hide her sulkiness. She explains that she’ll be working from home for a little while – they caught the drug trafficker but now there’s a lot of evidence to sift through. God, Eve would kill for even a drug case to sift through rather than only her own thoughts to stew on while the rest of the team continues to hunt Villanelle.

Eve decides to go to bed early that night. Any attempt at independent research in her study would just put her in a worse mood.

She sleeps quite soundly, having her best night of sleep in weeks, until a buzz from her phone wakes her up while it’s still dark. It’s an unknown number, probably spam, but as long as Eve has woken up, she figures she might as well answer it. She slips out the bedroom, careful not to wake Niko, and picks up.

“Hello again,” Villanelle’s voice greets her. “Did you get my message?”

 _Yes, I got your stupid message, and now I’m trapped in my house because of it,_ Eve thinks. But instead she says wearily, “It’s five-thirty in the morning. If you want a chat, couldn’t you at least call at a better time?”

Villanelle chuckles. “For me, this is like evening. In fact, I just had dinner.”

“What do you want from me?” Eve asks. She’s too exhausted for witty banter.

“Come downstairs.”

Eve is immediately suspicious, of course, but she figures as long as she doesn’t cross the threshold, Villanelle will be barred from the house, and she’ll be safe. More importantly, she’ll technically be within the bounds of the Silver League’s lockdown rules.

When Eve opens the door, there is Villanelle, eyes lighting up as she sees Eve and hangs up her phone.

“Your pajamas are so sexy,” Villanelle comments dryly.

Eve looks down at her worn-out bathrobe over her flannel pajama pants, unamused. “What are you doing here?” she hisses.

“I want to come in,” Villanelle says plainly.

“How stupid do you think I am?”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Villanelle insists.

“That means a lot coming from someone who called me ‘delectable’.”

“I’m not!” Villanelle sounds almost hurt by the accusation. “If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it any number of times outside your house. You are seriously not careful at all.”

“But that wouldn’t be as fun, would it?” Safe inside the threshold, Eve feels emboldened to challenge Villanelle. “You like conning your victims. You get a kick out of doing it in the house.”

“You caught me. I am a sucker for domesticity,” Villanelle smirks, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I swear, I just want to talk with you. One on one.”

“My husband is inside,” Eve says.

“He can go in another room, can’t he?”

“I mean, I’m not going to put him in danger by inviting you in.”

“Please, Eve. If I wanted Polish food, I’d go to Poland.”

Eve feels goosebumps rise on her arms despite her warm bathrobe. “You’re not coming in. End of story.”

Villanelle shakes her sleeve to get a look at the fine gold watch on her wrist. “Five fifty-five,” she says idly.

“I’m going back to bed,” Eve declares.

“Sunrise is at five fifty-seven,” Villanelle says. “If you don’t invite me inside in the next two minutes, I will die.”

“Quit being dramatic and go home,” Eve orders.

“Are you going to be stubborn about this?”

“I already know you have tricks for getting around during the daytime, so consider your bluff called. Bye.”

“One minute now,” Villanelle says, looking at her watch.

“Go find some shade somewhere else. Or don’t, for all I care. It would save me the work of killing you myself.”

“We don’t have much time Eve, you’re starting to make me worried.”

“Go to hell,” Eve says, finally slamming the door in Villanelle’s face.

Eve leans against the door, waiting until she hears Villanelle leave to go back up to bed. But then, why bother waiting? Villanelle will surely run off to safety somewhere. In twenty seconds, ten…

She hears Villanelle’s voice through the door: “Eve, I’m serious. the sun is coming. I’m fast but I’m not that fast. There is nowhere else for me to go.”

There is a very convincing quaver of fear in her voice, and Eve can’t resist the temptation to crack open the door again, just to see how good Villanelle’s acting is.

Villanelle’s eyes are desperate, wild. “Go ahead, invite me in!”

Eve says nothing. The sky starts to lighten.

“Stop fucking around, Eve!” Villanelle commands, furiously. “Say it! Say ‘come in!’ Or just wave or something!”

The sun starts to peek over the trees. Villanelle recoils as soon as the faintest beams reach her skin.

“Please, Eve, it hurts already.”

As the light intensifies, little by little, Villanelle begins moaning in pain. As much as Eve thinks she deserves to suffer for what she’s done, it’s still hard to watch a woman so clearly being hurt.

The sun rises another few degrees, breaking through the clouds and trees, and a beam shines right on Villanelle’s shoulder. She lets out a blood-curdling wail that cannot possibly be faked as a wisp of smoke starts to rise from her shoulder.

Eve can’t bear the sight of the smoke nor the sound of Villanelle’s screams a second longer. “Alright, fine, come in!”

Villanelle runs inside to safety, and Eve closes the door behind her. Villanelle’s scream of pain slowly morphs into a laugh, as she picks at a bit of singed skin on her shoulder. “You really scared me for a minute. Should I take off my shoes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think, fam???
> 
> Share any of your thoughts / feelings / theories with me here! or come say hi on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)! I'm always looking for more people to geek out with.


	6. Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After making an impulsive invitation, Eve is forced to play hostess for Villanelle.

  
After the fact, Eve comes up with plenty of reasons why she _had_ to invite Villanelle inside. She couldn’t let a woman burn to death on her doorstep, the neighbors would freak out. Besides, leaving Villanelle to burn in the sun would’ve been letting her take the easy way out. Eve wants to kill Villanelle by her own hands.

But at this moment, while Villanelle is taking off her shoes in the foyer, Eve can only marvel at the extremity of her stupidity. Aside from the fact that she’s foolishly surrendered her best and only layer of protection against the vampire, Eve is now faced with the awkward situation of having to entertain Villanelle at her house all day long.

Eve feels increasingly uncomfortable in her bathrobe and pajama pants as she fully appreciates Villanelle’s outfit for the first time. She’s dressed in a rich forest green bomber jacket over a white t-shirt, paired with tailored khaki pants over black combat boots – an oddly flattering ensemble Eve doesn’t think any mortal could pull off. To top off the outfit, Eve notices the shape of the pendant that hangs around Villanelle’s neck, pointing down towards the plunging V-neck of her shirt: a golden cross. Evidently she hasn’t lost her sense of humor.

Since Eve’s plan for the morning (to take advantage of her suspension from the Silver League by sleeping extremely late) has officially been ruined by Villanelle’s arrival, she shuffles into the kitchen in her slippered feet.

“Can I uh… get you anything?” she offers, but the answer must be no, right? All her observations thus far have suggested Villanelle doesn’t eat or drink regular food, and Eve is not in the mood to donate some blood to a peckish vampire.

“Coffee, please,” Villanelle says, leaning up against the counter. “Sugar and a bit of milk.”

Eve is taken aback, but begins brewing a pot of coffee, since she desperately needs some anyways. When she places the mug in front of Villanelle, the vampire leans over the mug and sniffs, making her eyelids flutter with pleasure.

“Colombian?”

“Yes,” Eve replies.

“Exquisite.”

Eve hears the telltale squeaking of floorboards from upstairs that indicates Niko has woken up. _Shit, shit._ She isn’t ready to introduce him to Villanelle, not just yet.

“I need you to hide,” Eve whispers.

“Hide?”

“Yes.”

Villanelle blinks innocently. “Where’s your hot water heater?”

“Hey, asshole, I’m serious. Go – in the closet, here. Only until Niko goes to work.” 

“It’s like we are having an affair,” Villanelle bites her lip and wiggles her eyebrows suggestively as Eve guides her in the right direction.

“Just–go!” Eve shoves the vampire into the coat closet a little too roughly as she hears Niko’s footsteps thudding down the stairs. 

“Eve? Have you run off in the middle of the night?”

“Morning,” Eve greets Niko as he rounds the corner into the kitchen. “Couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you with my tossing and turning.”

“Working from home today?” Niko asks, picking up Villanelle’s cup of coffee and taking a swig – at least it won’t go to waste.

“Yes,” Eve says. “No more stakeouts for a while. Just paperwork.”

“I know how you love paperwork,” Niko grins. “I’ll stop at the market after school. Assuming you’ll be home for dinner.”

“Sounds good.” Eve tries her best to keep her leg from jiggling nervously until Niko is out the door. Every second he spends sipping his coffee and getting dressed is agony, as Eve is terrified that Villanelle will burst out from the closet and kill both her and Niko, but the vampire is surprisingly well-behaved and doesn’t make a single peep.

Once Niko is safely out the door, Eve lets out a huge breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

“What a catch.” 

Eve lets out a shriek at how close Villanelle’s voice is, and turns around to see Villanelle only inches behind her. 

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” Eve pants.

“I always forget how bad human hearing is,” Villanelle chuckles, then stomps over to the kitchen table to sit again. “Better?”

“Much better,” Eve says, sitting across from her. She glances over to the the digital clock on the microwave which informs her it’s only 8:09. The sheer length of the day stretches out before Eve – at least eight hours until sundown, during which she’ll have to keep Villanelle entertained enough not to kill her.

“Now that he’s finally gone,” Villanelle says, “I thought we could get to know each other.”

“Get to know each other?” Eve scoffs.

“We have time.”

“Is this what gets you off? Getting to know your prey before you eat them?”

“I just want a friend,” Villanelle says and pouts. Her doe-eyed look could have been pulled straight from a Disney movie. God, it’s just unfair that a demon can look that adorable. “Don’t you want to get to know me, too?”

“I know plenty about you already, _Oksana_ ,” Eve retorts.

Villanelle smirks. “You have done your research.”

“Of course,” Eve says. “Do you think I tracked you down by being an idiot?”

“Where is it that you do this research?”

Eve hesitates. Is it right to let Villanelle into her study?

“It’s only fair,” Villanelle adds. “You know me so well, and I hardly know you. Except that your name is Eve, you smell fantastic, and you don’t care much about your husband.”

“You don’t know me at _all,_ ” Eve snaps.

“Help me out. Show me.”

They do have eight hours to kill, after all.

Eve leads Villanelle upstairs to the study, which normally feels cramped with one person in it, so with the two of them, it’s very close quarters. Villanelle shuts the door behind her, which does free up a bit more space, but also triggers some instinctual, animalistic fear in Eve’s body. No escape route.

“You are…” Villanelle looks around hungrily at the walls adorned with newspaper clippings, art, and crime scene photos, “ _obsessed._ ”

“I prefer ‘fastidious.’” Eve mutters.

“You have been chasing vampires your whole life?”

“Most of it,” Eve answers. “But without much luck. Until recently.”

“I am your first.” Villanelle says it as a statement rather than a question.

Eve knows she is hardly Villanelle’s first human victim, and probably not even the first Villanelle has conned into hosting her for a whole day with the sunrise gambit. She wants to ask what number she really is for Villanelle, how many unfortunate souls have fallen for Villanelle’s tricks before her, but she can’t quite form the words.

Villanelle interrupts Eve’s introspection, gesturing to Eve’s bookshelf. “Have you read all of these?”

“Not all,” Eve says, which is a lie. She’s read every single vampire novel and handbook on the shelf, some multiple times over. “What about you? Do you know any of them?”

“No, I have a life,” Villanelle laughs. “Some of these looks like children’s books.”

Defensiveness creeps into Eve’s tone as she says, “Stories aimed at kids tend to be more interesting. They allow the story to be three-dimensional, instead of just having the vampires be monsters.”

“Oh, but we are,” Villanelle says, turning her head to Eve. In the small space, Eve is very aware that Villanelle is only a few inches away from her. “Which one is your favorite?”

“Probably _Carmilla._ ” Eve feels more comfortable revealing her favorite vampire story knowing that Villanelle hasn’t read it and won’t be able to jump to any conclusions about Eve based on the choice. Still, she’s embarrassed enough to turn away from Villanelle, and ends up facing towards the door, catching her reflection in the mirror. She is still a disheveled mess in her pajamas, and Villanelle… Well, Villanelle isn’t there, of course.

Eve stares at herself alone the mirror, processing the paradoxical image as she feels Villanelle beside her, shifting closer until her body is up against Eve’s back. 

“Can I ask a stupid question?” Eve murmurs.

“Go ahead,” Villanelle says, and Eve can feel the cool breath on her neck.

“How do you, uh… How do you not look like a mess. How do you get by without a mirror, I mean.”

Villanelle lets out a low, husky laugh, and Eve has to resist the urge to turn around and look her in the face. “I will show you sometime.”

Eve would probably have stayed rooted to that spot for the entire day had Villanelle not gasped and pushed past Eve to the other wall of the office that kept Eve’s vampire movie collection. “Can we watch these?” she asks excitedly.

“Um… Sure?” Eve doesn’t have any reason to say no, and if Villanelle is really content to watch movies, it at least saves Eve the trouble of coming up with another way to occupy the vampire. “Tell you what. You pick one, and I’ll go get dressed.”

“I’ll meet you downstairs.”

After Eve has swapped her pajamas for a cozy turtleneck and slacks, she walks down the stairs to find Villanelle already making herself comfortable, settled in on the far side of the couch, safely away from the window. A huge pile of DVDs sits on the coffee table in front of her.

“I couldn’t choose,” Villanelle says. “So I decided we would have a marathon.”

And marathon they do, starting with _Let the Right One In_ and then switching to early seasons of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ when Villanelle complains that she wants something funnier.

The past few weeks have felt somewhat surreal to Eve, hunting down a real, deadly vampire after years of daydreaming about it, but staking out Villanelle’s apartment seems downright mundane compared to this: sitting next to her on the couch, listening to her react with shock and horror when Angel reverts into Angelus as if it isn’t a twenty-year-old plot twist.

What is Villanelle’s game here? Eve can’t get a grip on it. If getting the invitation was her biggest obstacle, why not kill Eve right here and now? Did she get a sick pleasure from drawing it out? Was it that much more exciting to her to get Eve to lower her defenses completely and turn on her the moment Eve believed she was truly safe?

If that’s the case, this movie marathon could last a very long time, because Eve does not have any intention of letting her guard down. Well, not any more than she already has by letting Villanelle in the house – a decision she has regretted more and more every minute, but at least there’s only a couple more hours before she can leave again.

While her brain churns away internally, Eve interviews Villanelle with some more quotidian questions she had about vampire life. It’s easier to talk like this, when she has something to look at besides Villanelle’s face.

“So crosses, garlic – those don’t hurt you at all?”

“Garlic is a favorite scent of mine,” Villanelle says. Instead of answering the other part of the question, she merely glances down at the cross necklace hanging around her neck. Eve follows her gaze and then snaps up back to the TV before her eyes stray too far into Villanelle’s cleavage.

“Aren’t vampires supposed to be pale?”

“Only if they are not well nourished.” 

Eve is smart enough to pick up the implicit threat in Villanelle’s answer, but presses on before her fear can stop her. “How long could you last in the sunlight? If I hadn’t… If you were out there while the sun was rising, how long would it take?”

“I prefer not to find out,” Villanelle says. “But I think I could make it a few minutes, if I had partial covering.” Her use of the hypothetical sounds a bit too purposeful, and Eve suspects Villanelle knows more about the specifics of what she can get away with than she’s letting on.

The afternoon slips away faster than Eve expects, and the sun is just beginning to set as Niko gets home, arms full of grocery bags. Eve panics as she hears him walk in – she should’ve gotten her story straight in her head, but at least she only will have to deal with both of them in the house together for a few minutes until Villanelle can go.

Before Eve can leap in, Villanelle is already standing and introducing herself to Niko with a flawless English accent. “Hi, I’m just a friend of Eve’s! It’s wonderful to meet you. You must be Niko, right?”

“Hello,” Niko says, a bit taken aback. “Always nice to meet a friend of Eve’s. Though I don’t think she’s ever mentioned you.”

Villanelle turns to Eve, clutching her chest. “Eve, darling, you never told him about me?”

Eve forces a smile. “Well, you’ve met now.”

Niko puts down the grocery bags. “I wish I’d known you were coming, I would’ve got more at the market. But – I think we’ve got enough, would you like to stay for dinner?”

Villanelle’s eyes light up. “Really, I wouldn’t be intruding?”

Eve bites back a retort, and says as calmly as she can, “Don’t you have to to be going right about now? It’s getting dark.”

“Nonsense. I’d love to stay.”

Eve makes a note to stake Villanelle extra hard for putting her through this.

They return to the couch as Niko cooks up dinner, but Eve is firmly back in reality now, and extremely annoyed. She stews while Villanelle picks up the remote and puts on another episode of _Buffy_ , and she stews when Niko calls them in for dinner.

As Niko passes the tray of shepherd’s pie over to Villanelle, she shamelessly serves herself a huge portion that Eve knows will go untouched.

“So how do you know each other?” Niko asks.

“We met through Eve’s new job,” Villanelle says, cheeks rounding with a smile.

“And you said your name was... Villanelle?” After a nod from Villanelle, Niko continues, “What an interesting name. Do you mind my asking where it comes from?”

“It smelled good,” Villanelle grins and offers no further explanation. Niko sneaks a confused glance at Eve, who just avoids his eyes. 

“Niko, this is delicious,” Villanelle says, wafting the steaming air from her plate towards her face and inhaling deeply. 

Niko smiles awkwardly. Eve can see that he’s noticed Villanelle hasn’t actually eaten a bite, but he’s far too polite to comment on it.

“Eve, do you like Niko’s cooking?”

“Yes,” Eve says flatly.

“You should tell him.” Villanelle gestures for Eve to do so right at this moment.

What on Earth is Villanelle playing at? Eve doesn’t know what else to do, but say, “Niko, this is great.”

“It’s important to make sure you appreciate each other in a marriage.”

“Right,” Niko says, reaching his hand across the table to reach Eve’s hand.

Villanelle folds her hands on the table, and looks back to Niko. “How did you and Eve meet?”

Eve shifts uncomfortable, “Um, why…?”

“Oh, I hope I’m not overstepping by asking that!” Villanelle says with sudden embarrassment. “I _love_ a love story.”

“Well,” Niko begins, nostalgia creeping into his voice, “We were at an adult bridge tournament. I was there playing to win, and I met this woman who appeared extremely confident in her skills…”

“Little did he know that I hardly knew the rules of bridge at all,” Eve cuts in.

“I still think you were hustling everyone. But anyway, I asked her to be my partner.”

“And you won the tournament?” Villanelle asks, intrigued. 

“God no,” Eve says. “We came in fifth and drowned our sorrows at the pub next door.”

“And in her drunkenness, she explained to me why she was really at that tournament. She thought one of the organizers was a vampire.” 

Eve shoot Niko a look, and he swallows, apologetically. “A bit of harmless fun, really.”

“Really?” Villanelle looks at Eve and elbows her. “Tell me more.”

“It was just a silly theory,” Eve mutters. “It didn’t pan out.”

“Nonetheless I was instantly charmed by her determination,” Niko says, steering the conversation back to more lighthearted territory. “And the rest is history. Didn’t mean to embarrass you, Eve, I’m sure you will find a vampire someday.”

“Yes,” Villanelle adds. “I’m sure she will.”

Once the dishes are cleared and Villanelle’s portion of shepherd’s pie is in the trash, Eve decides that the vampire has officially overstayed her welcome, and leads her to the door. 

“I had fun,” Villanelle says. “Didn’t you?”

“I don’t know the word for what today was, but I wouldn’t call it ‘fun’.”

“You hurt me, Eve,” Villanelle says with a frown. “I thought we were becoming friends.”

“You know I’m with the Silver League, right?”

Villanelle nods and twists her face into an exaggerated pout. “Yes, and it makes me very sad indeed.”

“You know I want to kill you,” Eve says, more as a statement than as a threat.

“I do not think you will go through with it,” Villanelle replies.

“You killed my best friend,” Eve says, more to remind herself than anything.

“Fine. If you want to kill me, I will give you one free shot.” Villanelle opens her arms and puffs out her chest, offering her heart as an unobstructed target. “Go on. Get your stake.”

When Eve remains still, Villanelle smirks and tucks her hands into her pockets. “That’s what I thought.”

“Do you do this to all your victims?” Eve asks, making no effort to hide the irritation in her voice. “Did you go hang out with that lasagna guy all day before you killed him? Got him to cook up a feast for you, and then _bam!_ ”

“No. I don’t.” Villanelle opens the door, and turns back to Eve one last time. “You were very kind to host me. I’d like to return the favor, if you’re up for it.”

Eve furrows her brow. Does Villanelle really want nothing else than to spend more time with her?

Villanelle smiles at Eve’s dumbstruck look. “I’ll call you.”

Eve watches her walk away until she disappears into the darkness. As if finally processing that the threat has gone, her body releases some cocktail of hormones that makes Eve feel like she’s made of jelly, filling her with euphoria as she appreciates how lucky she is to still be alive.

Eve’s joy is short-lived as a more pressing thought occurs to her: _Carolyn is going to fucking kill me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> confession time: I have not read Carmilla. I've seen the web series (obviously! and i love it!) but have not read the book. Am I a fraud???
> 
> Also, what are y'alls favorite vampire books/movies/etc? Give me some recs!
> 
> for deleted quotes / stupid villaneve flailings follow me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable) <3


	7. Exposed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve and Villanelle play a game of chicken with intimacy – but who will let her guard down first?

Eve is awoken by her phone ringing for the second morning in a row. 

All night she dreamt of faceless blonde vampires stalking her but disappearing each time she turned around, but the memory of the dreams quickly evaporates as her hand blindly searches the nightstand for her phone and she sees that it’s Carolyn calling. 

_Shit._

Before Eve can say so much as “Good morning”, Carolyn says, “Please report to headquarters immediately.”

“I’m not on lockdown anymore?” Eve asks groggily.

“Immediately,” Carolyn repeats, and ends the call.

Okay. So Carolyn knows what happened yesterday, which means Eve is as good as fired.

Eve considers remaining curled up in bed all day and never returning to the Silver League. Here in her blankets, she’s warm and safe and never has to think about rude vampires who overstay their welcome or hard-ass bosses who will reprimand her for, admittedly, disobeying her orders completely.

Eventually, after the heat builds up enough under her blanket to make her feel gross and sweaty and she can’t hold her pee any longer, Eve climbs out of bed. Once she’s dressed, it’s easier to feel mature enough to take responsibility for her actions. She reminds herself that remaining a vampire hunter is worth the pain of whatever castigation awaits her, and goes to accept her fate.

When Eve arrives at the house, Kenny opens the door before she can even knock and leads her into the kitchen. The entire team is standing there solemnly – clearly they all know what Eve did.

“Can we have the room, please,” Carolyn says to no one in particular, but the entire team besides Eve is glad for the excuse to leave.

Eve is definitely about to get fired.

With a deep breath, Eve begins, “I can explain–”

“As much as I’d like to address your earth-shattering stupidity right now, we don’t have time.” She untucks her arm and places a manila folder on the counter in front of Eve, opening it to reveal a grisly photo.

The only word to describe the scene in the photo is “massacre”. Five bodies lie around a living room. Two men, three children, sprawled across the couches and the floor. They could almost be sleeping, if not for the single bite mark on each of their necks. Villanelle’s not even trying to be subtle anymore.

“Erik and Leif Goransson, with their daughters, who were unfortunate enough to have selected an AirBnB with a welcome mat outside the door,” Carolyn says solemnly. 

“When?”

“Right after we found Konstantin. While we were distracted by him, she was doing this.”  
  
“But do we know it was her, and not another vampire? She’s not usually so…”

“Brazen? Attention-seeking? Cruel?” Carolyn looks pointedly at Eve.

Eve feels sick because she knows Carolyn is right. Villanelle got off on tricking them all while she snuck off to murder this poor family. Then, with all their blood inside her, she went and spent a whole day with Eve, playing the innocent houseguest. Phrases from yesterday echo in Eve’s mind with new meaning: _“I just had dinner”… “Only if they are not well nourished”_ … Eve grows more nauseous by the second.

“I can’t believe I almost…” Eve doesn’t know how to finish her sentence. Forgot the vampire was dangerous? Let her guard down? Felt _sympathy_ for Villanelle?

Carolyn purses her lips and closes the folder. “Right. Well. Lucky for you, lucky for us, I think we may be able to leverage your incomprehensibly large mistake to our advantage.”

Eve’s phone buzzes with a message from the same number Villanelle had called from yesterday.

_Hey Slayer, wanna hang? Xx_  
🧛♀️👨👨👧👧👻👍🏻

Eve has to grab the edge of the counter to steady herself. 

Villanelle knows Eve has discovered her handiwork, of course she knows, and yet she can't help but draw extra attention to it. God, the emoji with the two dads and the children… She’s demented. She’s a monster who gets her kicks from playing with Eve like a wind-up toy. Turn the key, kill some innocents, watch the idiot hunter chase you around, then run right into your arms.

Carolyn picks up the phone. “May I?” Eve nods, dumbfounded, as Carolyn types out a reply to Villanelle.

_When & where?_

Eve reads the sent message, then looks up at Carolyn in astonishment. “Are you insane?”

“Regrettably, a small dose of insanity is required to rectify what you’ve done.”

Eve’s half-formed question is cut off by the phone buzzing against the granite counter again with Villanelle’s reply.

_Yay!!! Come to mine. Whenever you’re ready._

Carolyn hands the phone to Eve. “Well, fix your hair and go down there.”

“I can’t go there alone, she’s a murderer!” Eve sputters. “And what’s wrong with my hair?” A hand goes up to her bun, self-consciously.

“For whatever reason, she doesn’t want to kill you at the moment,” Carolyn says. “So, your job is simple. You will go to her and keep her occupied until our team surrounds her. You will keep her from running by any means necessary. Then, we will dispatch her once and for all.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Eve says. Maybe Villanelle hadn’t killed her yet, but Eve still had no idea _why._

“You can. It’s why I hired you.” Carolyn gives the thinnest, tiniest smile Eve has ever seen, though it fills her with a strange influx of confidence.

The past week since she met Villanelle has been the most confusing of her life. Her wildest dreams and worst nightmares were coming true side by side. After today, it would be over.

As if reading her mind, Carolyn says, “Your career as a hunter is only beginning. Once we take care of Villanelle, you’ll still get to work with us. But more importantly, you’ll be a hero. You’ll go down in the history books as the hunter who helped slay the Demon with No Face.”

“Catchy name.”

“Once a vampire hits a certain body count, they get a catchy name; that’s the deal.”

Eve can’t tell if Carolyn is joking or not. She might ask if she weren’t on the brink of getting fired.

  
Eve enters the foyer of Villanelle’s apartment building, adjusting the wire that Kenny had given her that’s stuck inside her bra. (Mercifully, Kenny had merely instructed Eve on how to attach it and let her do the insertion herself). It would broadcast a live audio feed to the rest of the team, Kenny explained, so they’ll get a sense of the situation they are about to run into, and they’ll know if Eve gets into trouble. Though it’s small, it pokes into her, and she fears that Villanelle will somehow discover it – _“but why would she be looking in there?”_ Kenny had asked, which of course set Elena off in a fit of laughter.

By the time Eve reaches the second floor, fourth apartment from the stairwell, her heart is pounding, her palms are sweating and her mouth is dry. _This could be the day I die,_ she realizes. Despite the vampire’s friendliness thus far, Villanelle might kill Eve on the spot if she discovers the wire, or indeed, kill _all_ of the hunters if the confrontation doesn’t go their way.

Yet somehow, Eve is more frightened by the alternative, of whatever else Villanelle might want to do with her instead of killing her.

Mustering up all of her courage, she knocks on the door. “Come in,” she hears in a singsongy tone, so Eve turns the doorknob and finds it unlocked.

It takes Eve a minute to make sense of the scene before her. Villanelle is sitting cross-legged on the couch, and facing her, a few feet away, sits Konstantin, in an identical position. Villanelle has an eyeliner pencil in one hand and is in the midst of applying it as Konstantin watches, occasionally muttering, “More. Stop. A little too high.”

Eve watches, rapt, as Villanelle finishes applying her makeup with Konstantin’s guidance. At the end, she asks, “How do I look?” to which Konstantin replies, “Fine.”

“No, give me a real answer. Do I look good enough for my day with Eve?” Wait, was that right – did she say _day_ or _date?_

“You look beautiful,” Konstantin sighs with an exasperation that clearly betrays how many times he’s had to go through this routine.

Villanelle springs up onto her feet and looks at Eve. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“It’s alright,” Eve says, since she was suitably entertained by the show.

“But now that I am ready," Villanelle purrs, "we will move somewhere more private.”

“Private? Like in the other room?”

“You’ll see,” Villanelle walks to the door and looks back for Eve to follow.

Eve swallows, her throat tightening. This wasn’t part of the plan. The Silver League was supposed to come surround her here, at this location they were already familiar with. _Calm down,_ she reminds herself. _This is what the wire is for. They will hear the change. They will adapt._

“Konstantin, wait here until my next orders, okay?”

“Right,” Konstantin grunts.

Villanelle hangs back before she shuts the door. “And?”

“Love you.”

What on Earth? Eve must look visibly shocked by the exchange, because Villanelle says, “It’s not creepy. I told him whenever I leave he has to say that.”

“Where are we even going?” Eve asks as she follows Villanelle down the stairs. “It’s broad daylight, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’m showing you all my tricks today,” Villanelle replies. 

“What have I done to earn that privilege?”

“You are here,” Villanelle stops on a step and turns to look at Eve. “That’s more than most humans would dare.”

After a beat, Villanelle continues down the stairs, leading Eve past the exit into the lobby and down into the basement. Eve saw the basement before, when they searched the entire building two days ago to check if Villanelle was hiding anywhere. Eve remembers checking the corners, the vents, and yes, indeed, even knocking on the hot water heater and hearing the resonant sound that indicated it was full of water and not a vampire.

However, Villanelle doesn’t go to the heater, or the vents; she walks up to the dusty chest freezer in the corner, which looks like it hasn’t been functional for years and must have been abandoned by a previous tenant. Eve recalls that the freezer was the first spot they checked in the whole basement since it seemed like such a natural place to hide, but Villanelle doesn’t open the lid; instead she squats down, reaches her arms underneath, and then lifts it with ease, as if it were nothing but a crate of apples.

Eve moves far out of the way as Villanelle backs up and places the freezer down away from the wall with a loud _clang_ as it hits the concrete floor. Eve slaps a hand to her face in frustration when she realizes how foolish her and the rest of the team were to have missed Villanelle’s escape route: a small trapdoor set into the floor, underneath where the freezer had been.

After opening the door with a creak, Villanelle gestures for Eve to enter. 

“No way,” Eve says. “I’m not walking into that creepy tunnel. You go first.”

“I will go first if you can move that freezer back over the door behind us,” Villanelle says. Eve bites the inside of her cheek and carefully begins the descent into darkness. The first few steps aren’t so bad, but as soon as she feels the wooden steps change into a cold stone floor beneath her feet, there’s hardly any light for her to see by. Eve isn’t particularly scared of the dark, but it’s hard not to be a little unsettled when Villanelle closes the entrance behind them and she’s stuck in pitch darkness, in a tunnel to who knows where, with a vampire.

Eve’s heart leaps into her throat as she feels the sudden contact of Villanelle’s hand on her shoulder, as the vampire squeezes by Eve in the narrow tunnel to lead the way.

“I can’t see a thing,” Eve whispers, though she’s not sure why – who is going to overhear them in this tunnel? “Can you really see in this darkness?”

“Take my hand,” Villanelle says, and mercifully, since Eve couldn’t find the vampire’s hand or even her own hand in the pitch darkness, Villanelle makes the contact for her. Villanelle’s hand is cold, and soft, and strong, and she intertwines her fingers with Eve’s and squeezes tightly as she leads them through the dark.

Luckily, the journey is short, and it must be only a minute or so before Villanelle stops abruptly, then opens a small door that leads them into another basement, which it turns out, belongs to the hotel across the street, the same one Eve and Elena had used for their stakeouts.

After a quick word with one of the front desk staff – _oh Lord, did she book ahead of time?_ – Villanelle has a room key in hand and leads Eve all the way up to room 208.

“Now we can talk all we like and we don’t be disturbed,” Villanelle says with a smile, putting the “Do Not Disturb” hanger on the doorknob for extra effect.

Eve sits down on the edge of the bed. Why would Villanelle bring her here, of all places? Leaving the apartment, Eve could understand – if some part of Villanelle suspected this may be another trap laid by the Silver League, she wasn’t off the mark there – but for some reason, sitting alone in a hotel room with Villanelle made her even more uncomfortable than the dark tunnel had.

Villanelle sits down next to Eve on the edge of the bed and looks at her, saying nothing.

“What?” Eve says, growing self-conscious the longer Villanelle stares.

“Your hair,” Villanelle murmurs. “I could look at it all day.”

“My hair?” Eve can feel the heat rush to her cheeks as her hand flies up to twirl a curl protectively. Maybe Carolyn was right to tell her to let her hair down after all…

“It’s beautiful,” Villanelle says, and something inside Eve starts to flutter – but no. _Remember the Goranssons,_ Eve tells herself. _Remember those poor kids. That was one dinner for Villanelle. Every night she continues to walk this Earth, more innocent people will die to become her meal. Or her plaything._

 _Eyes on the prize, Polastri._ Whatever it takes, Eve must keep Villanelle occupied until the rest of the team can surround them. Which, Eve prays, will be soon, but until then, she has to make conversation. “Can I ask you more questions?”

“I know you are going to anyway. So go ahead,” Villanelle says, flopping down onto the bed and turning onto her side to face Eve.

Eve doesn’t feel comfortable enough to lie down in the vampire’s presence, but she does swing her legs up to sit cross-legged on the bed, facing Villanelle. “Do you miss being a human?”

Villanelle furrows her brow, seemingly taken aback by the question. “I miss eating food. I miss being able to see how beautiful I am. But not much else, no.”

Eve snorts. She should’ve seen that one coming.

“What did it feel like, when you got turned?”

“Very painful.”

“How often do you have to, uh…”

“Feed?”

“Yes.”

Villanelle shrugs. “One person will usually tide me over for a couple of days. Depends how big they are.”

One person. A couple of days. Eve is unable to hide her disgust.

“You are thinking of that family,” Villanelle says, bluntly.

“Why?” Eve asks. “Five people. Was it just a treat-yourself kind of night or what? Or are you really just trying to taunt me as much as possible?”

“You think I feed to taunt you?”

“I mean, get my attention. No, I mean… you know what I mean.”

“Stop babbling,” Villanelle says. “I did do it for you.”

Eve flinches. 

“But not for the reason you think,” Villanelle clarifies. “What’s your favorite food?”

Eve scrunches up her nose. “What?”

“What’s your craving you will never get sick of?”

Eve ponders. “I can eat a pretty endless amount of french fries.”

“Imagine you are going to spend a whole day with some french fries,” Villanelle says. “But you mustn’t eat them. Not even one. How would you stop yourself?”

“I’d eat a really big meal so I was too full to even think about eating any fries,” Eve mutters, nodding. It makes sense, intellectually. But she isn’t sure which comparison is more unsettling: herself to a batch of french fries, or a family of five to a hearty and healthy meal.

Villanelle cocks her head, looking into Eve’s eyes. “There’s something else you want to ask.”

“What does it feel like when you drink?”

“There is nothing in human life it can be compared to,” Villanelle says, softly, liltingly. “It is like… chugging a beer. While riding a rollercoaster. But also warming up by a fireplace.”

“That sounds awful.”

Villanelle sighs. “I can’t explain it. It is one of those things you just have to experience.”

Eve ponders that for a moment. It almost sounded like Villanelle was inviting Eve to experience it. Was that her plan for Eve, after all? To make her into a vampire?

“My turn now,” Villanelle says, raising her head and propping it up on a bent arm. “Do your little hunter friends know you are here?”

“I got fired,” Eve says, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. “They didn’t want anyone stupid enough to invite a vampire inside their house on the team.”

“You’re lying,” Villanelle says casually. 

“I’m not!” Eve tries to fill her voice with righteous indignation. She can’t get caught now; she has to stall a little longer…

“Your heart is racing.”

Eve swallows her panic. _Play it cool. The team must be on their way by now. All you have to do is keep her talking for a few more minutes._

“Maybe that has something to do with the unstoppable killing machine a couple feet away from me, staring at me like I’m a delicious trifle.”

“You were not so scared yesterday.” Villanelle sits up fully and reaches out a hand to touch Eve’s curls, gently. “Don’t you know by now that I am not going to eat you?”

“Maybe that’s not what I’m scared of.”

Villanelle leans in slowly closing the gap between her and Eve, making Eve’s heart pound so loudly she doesn’t need vampire hearing to notice it. There is of course, nothing to stop Villanelle from doing what she wants, from taking what she wants from Eve. 

Is Villanelle’s satiation from her extra-large meal beginning to wear off? Is she just hungry enough to want to try one teeny-tiny french fry? Is she asking herself, _What’s the harm?_

But Eve can’t tell, is Villanelle really leaning in for a bite, or for… something else?

She is spared from finding out, because at that moment, the door explodes off its hinges and Jess, Hugo, and Carolyn rush into the hotel room, strapped head to toe with weapons, all pointed directly at Villanelle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you you guys think? Let me know in the comments!
> 
> You can also follow me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)... my hype for s3 is starting to build and I can't handle it!!
> 
> (p.s. [sorry for the cliffhanger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrOTSFx6p6w))


	8. Puncture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cornered by the Silver League, Villanelle and Eve must both decide where their loyalties lie – or die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of sorry for the cliffhanger? But not really. Hope you enjoy this chapter <3

Given that Eve is currently living out one of her most common daydreams – badass standoff with a vampire! – she thought she’d enjoy it more.

However, instead of triumph at having tricked and cornered a vampire, or excitement for the battle to come, Eve feels only a weight on her chest, making each breath an effort. 

“Oh, hello,” Villanelle acknowledges the entrance of the hunters casually, as she stops mid-lean towards Eve. “Didn’t you see the sign? ‘Do not disturb’. Very rude to come in without even knocking.”

Villanelle glances over to see if Eve is laughing at her clever joke. When Eve is unable to even meet her eyes, Villanelle’s face becomes clouded by confusion, then hurt, as she pieces together Eve’s part in the trap.

“Fired, huh?” she asks.

“Step away from her,” Hugo says authoritatively. 

“Oh yes, and what else? If I come quietly nobody has to get hurt?” Villanelle says. “Heard that one before.”

“We’re going to kill you no matter what,” Jess says. “But it’ll be easier for all of us if you don’t put up a fuss.”

Obviously, Villanelle has no heartbeat to betray her, but positioned so close to her, Eve can tell something tenses in her, ever so slightly. Villanelle is scared. 

Maybe that isn’t the right word – maybe Villanelle isn’t capable of being genuinely frightened, but she is at least concerned. She has lost her smugness and is trying to calculate an escape route. Cocky though she is, she must doubt her chances in a close-quarters fight against three hunters. 

_Four,_ Eve reminds herself. _I am one of the four._

Carolyn must have also clocked Villanelle’s shiftiness, because she announces in her calm, commanding manner, “We’ve sealed off all pipes and vents from this room as well, so don’t get any ideas. There is truly no escape. One way or another, this ends today.”

“I had hoped the chase might go on a bit longer, but if you say so,” Villanelle growls, and suddenly Eve can no longer see her as ostensibly human; her face and body contort into a clearly predatory posture. 

The next few events occur so rapidly that Eve’s brain can hardly process them. Jess raises her crossbow to take aim at Villanelle’s heart, but Villanelle is already a blur of motion, attacking Jess head on. Several cries of pain and surprise blend into one as Villanelle is on top of Jess, twisting her arm cruelly, producing a sickening crack that must be at least one broken bone, maybe more.

However, one of the screams was Villanelle’s – she reels backwards, towards the bed where Eve is still seated, and Eve sees that Jess’s arrow, though it missed its intended target, sank into Villanelle’s shoulder instead. 

Villanelle roars in pain as she yanks the arrow out, but as she’s disoriented, Carolyn nails her with another arrow, this one hitting her chest below her collarbone. To Eve it seems that it hit the mark, but it must have missed her heart by mere millimeters, because Villanelle does not explode into dust, she merely lets out another enraged scream.

Carolyn is furiously reloading her bow, and Hugo seems much more concerned with checking on Jess’s injury than he is with trying to take down the vampire, but he does spare a moment to make eye contact with Eve. “Strong thrust,” he says, pulling out a stake from a holster on his belt and tossing it to Eve.

Through some miracle of coordination, Eve catches the stake, but when she looks up at her enemy, she freezes.

Villanelle is struggling to pull the second arrow out of her chest, panting heavily with a combination of pain and rage. She seems more like a cornered bull than a human now, her eyes darting around wildly to assess the situation. Eve is close enough that she could finish it. One thrust, that’s all it would take and it would be over.

But she can’t.

With a guttural roar, Villanelle wrenches the second arrow out of her chest, and notices that Eve is now armed with a stake. Will she strike out at the nearest enemy? She could easily kill Eve with one blow if she wanted to.

Eve looks into Villanelle’s animal eyes and tries her hardest to achieve telepathy. _Please,_ she thinks. _Remember a few minutes ago, when it was just us? Remember what that was like?_

Maybe it works. Eve can’t be sure. But Villanelle does not strike out to kill her, though she does descend upon Eve. In a flash, her arms are around Eve, and she clutches Eve tightly in front of her, using her as a human shield.

“Drop your weapons,” Villanelle rasps. “All of them. Or I will snap her neck.”

Hugo, though he’s in the middle of moving Jess to the corner safely away from the fighting, looks up warily and starts unfastening his belt full of weapons. Carolyn, however, keeps her bow trained on Villanelle – and Eve.

“As one of the Silver League, Eve understands the risks she took on when she agreed to this mission,” Carolyn says. Eve’s heart beats even faster than before – it was one thing to feel noble while talking about putting her life on the line, it was another to be staring down a crossbow. She opens her mouth to plead for her life, but Villanelle slams a cold hand over her mouth.

“You would kill one of your own?” Villanelle asks. “And you say _I_ am the monster?”

“I assure you I do not miss often,” Carolyn says. “And I do believe at this range an arrow can make it through your shield into your heart.”

“Carolyn,” Hugo says, with concern, “You’re not really going to… Eve?”

“Killing the vampire will free Konstantin,” Carolyn says plainly. “There is no other way. I am sorry, Eve, but sacrifices must be made.”

Eve can tell from Carolyn’s stony face that she is not bluffing. She idly wonders if Niko will ever learn the truth, or if he’ll be told some mundane story about her death. Car accident. Mugging. Heart problems. Though that last one could be accurate, in a certain interpretation.

“Take comfort, Eve,” Carolyn says, softly. “You will be remembered as a hero.”

Carolyn pulls the trigger, but the arrow whizzes harmlessly through mere air, as Villanelle moves through the only escape route left, pulling Eve with her.

Villanelle launches both of them towards the heavy curtains, shattering the glass, and catapulting them out the window.

For a few seconds, they are weightless in the air, and all Eve can think is: _she saved us. She saved **me.**_

Then every thought is knocked out of her head by hard concrete. Luckily, since they were only on the second floor, they aren’t squashed into goo, but it still isn’t fun. Eve lands on top of Villanelle, and hopes the vampire is durable, because Eve certainly isn’t. The impact against the ground feels like getting run over by a truck, and though Villanelle still clutches Eve tightly to her, the fall causes Villanelle’s elbow to slam into Eve’s mouth, bringing a burst of pain.

Eve is so dazed, she might have stayed there on the ground for hours if not for the immediate, pungent smell of burning flesh that rouses her to action. The midday sun blazes in the sky, and Villanelle is fully exposed. The effect is not at all like the slow trails of smoke that rose when Villanelle stood in the rising sun; it’s more like she’s been doused in gasoline and set alight. 

Eve scrambles to her feet, though every one of her bones protests at the effort, and stands over Villanelle, trying to shield the vampire from the worst of the sun’s rays, but she can tell it won’t do much good. Eve ignores the confused cries and stares of onlookers who whisper with concern about the two women that fell out of the hotel window – her only concern is to get Villanelle to safety. Meanwhile, Villanelle writhes in pain, trying to retreat inside her sweater and give her skin that slight barrier from the direct sunlight.

“Hold still,” Eve commands. “I’ve got to move you, but you need to hold still, okay?” Eve wishes she had Villanelle’s super strength as she tries to drag the fidgeting ball of vampire to her feet. She does her best to cover the taller woman with her body, hunching over her, and half-lifting, half guiding her hurriedly towards the next nearest building.

As soon as they tumble inside the door, Eve frantically pats down every smoking patch on Villanelle’s body until the heat starts to fade. After a terrifying twenty seconds or so, it seems like all the flames have subsided, and Villanelle is still standing, though considerably worse for wear, looking like she just escaped from a burning building, with nasty burns covering most of her skin.

“Can I, uh, help you two ladies?” Eve looks over in the direction of the voice to see a very concerned bartender in the middle of polishing a glass. They’ve stumbled into a dive bar, with only a few (likely alcoholic) patrons at the bar, who stare at the pair of women with interest, but not alarm, like they’ve all seen worse in their time.

Eve catches her reflection in the mirror behind the bar – her lip is split and bleeding, and with all her other assorted bangs and bruises, she looks like she’s been in a street fight. In this moment, it’s probably for the best that Villanelle can’t see her reflection, because she’d surely have a meltdown if she could see the burns marring her previously perfect skin.

“Where is the bathroom?” Villanelle pants. The bartender gestures to a small hallway at the back of the room, and goes back to his polishing without further comment.

Villanelle grabs Eve’s hand and drags her in the direction the bartender pointed, but instead of going into the door marked WOMEN, she glances back to make sure no one is looking, then tries the door next to it marked PRIVATE - EMPLOYEES ONLY. 

“What are you doing?” Eve hisses.

As the door open easily, Villanelle pulls Eve with her through it, down a creaky set of stairs into the basement. “We need to move,” Villanelle says. “They are coming for us.”

“You need rest. And something for your burns…”

“I will be fine,” Villanelle breathes, but the rasp in her voice tells a different story. She scans the basement, looking over the shelves of alcohol bottles and kegs, clearly looking for something in particular. She sniffs the air, then goes to one shelf on the left wall, and bracing her shoulder against it, shoves the entire shelf away from the wall, revealing a small, dusty panel set into the concrete behind it. Apparently she has a real knack for finding secret passageways.

Villanelle grips into the edge of the panel with her fingertips and with a grunt of effort, wrenches the panel open revealing what appears to be a small access tunnel for the electrics and plumbing for the building.

“Are we going to hide in there all day? Because I’m not good with that,” Eve says.

Villanelle says, “This is our way out.” She gestures for Eve to climb in first.

Claustrophobia immediately clutches Eve’s chest as she climbs into the tiny space full of pipes and wires, which worsens as Villanelle climbs in behind her and then shuts the panel, leaving them trapped in the small, dark space. Eve finds herself wishing they were in the tunnel that had taken them from Villanelle’s apartment to the hotel; at least that one seemed like it was built for humans to walk through it, whereas this dusty crawl space hardly seems fit for raccoons. Maybe Villanelle is used to hiding in places like this, but as a human who needs light to see and air to breathe, Eve finds it terrifying.

There is only one direction to move, so Eve gets down to her knees and crawls ahead, blind to where she’s going, feeling her way across the dirty floor, almost smacking her head on low-hanging pipes a few times. Eventually, she hits a wall, and panic begins to seize her chest as she realizes they are trapped.

Villanelle remains calm, maneuvering past Eve in the tiny space, though the effect is more that she crawls on top of Eve. Then, she punches through the plywood wall in front of them, allowing precious fresh air to pour in. A few more blows make a hole wide enough to crawl through, and she pushes Eve like a child through the hole into a blissfully larger, though still dark, space.

As Villanelle tumbles through the hole behind her, Eve stands up and glances around. From the tiny amount of light, though her eyes have started to adjust, it appears to be an abandoned Underground tunnel.

“How did you know…?” Eve asks.

“Could smell the piss and the electricity,” Villanelle grunts as she tries to stand up, then stumbles. Eve runs over to catch her. It seems the arrow wounds and sun exposure are finally catching up to the vampire.

“You’re in no shape to move. We should rest here for a while,” Eve says.

“No, we are still too close. We must keep going,” Villanelle groans. She leads the way down the tunnel, and Eve follows. 

Gradually, Villanelle’s pace wanes, until Eve has to slow down her own injured-human pace to help Villanelle, whose face now looks vampirically pale, aside from the shiny pink burnt patches.

Finally, it’s too much for her, and she collapses onto the floor of the tunnel. “Villanelle!” Eve exclaims. She grabs Villanelle’s shoulders and shakes her, gently at first, then with a bit more force. “Come on, wake up. Tell me what to do.”

“Need… blood,” Villanelle manages.

“Um, okay,” Eve says, motivated into leadership by the desperate circumstances. “Maybe if we go back to the bar, there’s someone you can take…”

“No,” Villanelle whispers. “I am in no shape to hunt.” Her eyes flutter, half-glazed over with weakness, then fixate on the lower half of Eve’s face. Eve had almost forgotten how beat up she was herself, until she realizes that Villanelle is practically drooling at the blood smeared all over Eve’s face, that had poured out from her split lip.

With a sudden burst of energy, Villanelle sits up and latches onto Eve’s face, securing her lips on Eve’s. It’s not quite a kiss: her lips form a suction around Eve’s lower lip as she sucks the blood from Eve’s cut. The result is an odd sensation, almost like receiving a hickey, but less painful since the wound is open, allowing the blood to flow from Eve’s capillaries into Villanelle’s mouth without resistance. It leaves Eve’s face feeling numb and fuzzy, like she’s been shot up with novocaine. 

After about twenty seconds, Villanelle pulls away with a sigh, already looking more like her old self. Eve is left lightheaded and mildly dizzy, but if that blood is enough to tide Villanelle over until they make it out of this tunnel, then Eve is glad to be of service.

“Better?” Eve asks.

“Yes,” says Villanelle with a grin. “Much better.”

She lunges faster than Eve can see, and a white-hot bolt of pain fires through Eve as Villanelle’s jaws clamp down on her neck.

 _This is what Bill felt,_ Eve thinks as she sits helplessly, as she is fed upon. The teeth sinking into her flesh… the gentle feel of Villanelle’s soft lips on the wound as she pulls back to drink… Eve can hear the slurping, and almost would laugh at how silly it sounds, if she had the strength. Bill definitely would’ve laughed at it; this was exactly his sense of humor.

For the third and final time that day, Eve is sure she is about to die, but this time, it’s easier to make her peace with it. Maybe it’s just because her rapidly dropping blood pressure means she has no energy left to feel fear. Maybe it’s because some part of her is glad that her life is going towards giving Villanelle the strength to continue on.

Whatever the cause, Eve feels a remarkable calmness wash over her as the already dim world around her fades to solid black.

* * *

  
When Eve wakes up, the sky is moving. 

_What? Is that Heaven?_ That doesn’t make any sense. Eve has no illusions about herself; she definitely wasn’t good enough to get into Heaven.

Besides, if Eve is in Heaven, why would she feel such a tightness in her chest and a pain in her neck? There shouldn’t be any pain in Heaven, right? So maybe it’s Hell, although it does seem to be a rather mild start for Hell. Maybe the eternal torment starts as minor discomfort and builds from there.

As Eve’s senses return, she realizes the tightness on her chest is a seatbelt. The sky is moving because she’s in a car. That also explains why the colors are muted and sepia: she’s seeing the clouds through a tinted window.

Mustering all her strength, she manages to sit up and turn her neck to the driver’s seat. Though the figure next to her is bundled up in heavy clothes, a headscarf, and sunglasses, she can tell by the posture that it’s Villanelle. 

“Hello, sleepyhead,” Villanelle purrs, though her gaze stays on the road in front of them. “You were out for a long time. I was getting worried.”

Why is she in a car with Villanelle? Memories slowly bubble up in Eve’s mind. Villanelle bit her… Eve died, didn’t she? But no, here she was. Which must mean…

Eve leans forward to look in the side mirror. Her reflection greets her, same as always; a bit paler than usual, but clearly still human. A gauze bandage pokes out from her sweater, secured around her neck with medical tape.

She recalls the other possible result of a human being bitten by a vampire – yes, it makes sense – Villanelle had left Eve alive to become her thrall. Now that she’d ditched Konstantin, she wanted a new slave to go on the run with her. Well, at least Eve is alive.

“Where are we?” Eve croaks.

“Don’t worry about that,” Villanelle says. “There is a bottle of water in the glove compartment. Drink it. You are definitely dehydrated.”

Eve doesn’t immediately feel the compulsion to obey the order, so it seems she isn’t a thrall either. Not a vampire, not a thrall? None of this makes any sense.

After a short rest to work up the energy, she asks, “Why am I still alive?”

Villanelle turns to Eve, lowering her sunglasses, and says, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world, “I’m not done with you yet.”

Then she hits a button to turn on the radio and fixes her eyes back on the road. Eve removes the water from the glove compartment and takes a big swig. It tastes like pure ecstasy. 

They drive, and drive, and drive, far away from everything Eve knows, towards a future she can’t imagine, until exhaustion washes over Eve once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who has read this story, commented, or silently enjoyed it: thank you so much. I started this on a whim and thought I'd be writing it mostly for my own entertainment and I could not have predicted how much people would like it! Thank you for your support and for making me feel less alone, stuck in my vampire phase. <3
> 
> Oh, and... one more thing. Just like Villanelle is not done with Eve? I'm not done with this universe.
> 
> There's another really ambitious AU I wanna crack into first, but more Thirst-verse is coming. Subscribe to the [series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620313%22) or follow me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable) for updates. <3


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